When X-Men Collide – X-Men: Days of Future Past

This month’s crop of summer blockbusters has been middling at best. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was a sloppy, forgettable affair that managed to make a muddle of the Sinister Six, and Godzilla failed to live up to the prerelease expectations and delivered a cookie-cutter dopey plot around the reasonably enjoyable (if frequently truncated) monster slugfests. But now we come to the big one, the film that one could almost call a comic fan’s dream come true: X-Men: Days of Future Past, with its meshing of two cinematic X-casts in a tale based on one of the most treasured arcs in the X-canon. X-pectations are high, to say the least.

I’m pleased to report that those expectations (we can dispense with the X-traneous Xs now DAMN IT I DID IT AGAIN) have been fully met. DoFP is all that we could have hoped — or dreamed. It’s a seamless amalgamation of narrative threads that stretch back to the 2000 beginning, in a franchise that’s gone through multiple directors, screenwriters and a reboot to boot. It’s not quite up to the ecstatic glee that was The Avengers, but the feeling you have walking out of the theater is reminiscent. It’s good. It’s really, really good, and better than this year’s benchmark to this point, Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Bryan Singer and Co. have outdone themselves. There are quibbles to be sure — and I have them, as always — but this is one of those wonderful movies that never insults its audience. You never cringe at lameness, because there isn’t any.

More elaboration on the next page, including some minor spoilers. Click on over down below if you’re game.

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