Film Review | X-Men: Days of Future Past
★★★★☆
After Matthew Vaughn’s X-Men: First Class (2011) rejuvenated the series original director Bryan Singer returns with the daunting task of uniting two timelines and two casts in the ambitious X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014). With both new and old characters to introduce and re-introduce, as well as the tricky mechanism of time-travel, there was tremendous potential for it to go horribly wrong. Which makes it all the more impressive that Singer gets it mostly right.
Taking inspiration from Chris Claremont and John Byrne’s beloved comic book storyline of the same name, Days of Future Past begins with a chilling battle in a dystopian future between powerful mutant-hunting robots – known as Sentinels – and a motley cadre of mutant survivors. In order to avoid extinction, Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) uses her powers to send Wolverine’s consciousness back into his younger body in 1973 (both versions played once again by the ageless Hugh Jackman) to alter past events and change the course of history. To do so, Logan must enlist the aid of both a younger Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Erik Lensher aka Magneto (Michael Fassbender), whose friendship is on the rocks.
Film Trailer | X-Men: Days of Future Past
Whilst we’ve seen arguably a little too much footage from Marc Webb’s upcoming Marvel superhero offering The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014), almost the opposite can be said for Bryan Singer’s X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) – a detail all the more surprising when you consider that its release is less than two months away (official UK release date has been set for 22 May). Since the reserved announcement trailer back in late October of last year, all we’ve seen is a deluge of character posters and a tantalising Instagram teaser. So today, 20th Century Fox have finally unveiled a second full-length trailer, and it’s decidedly more ostentatious.
Film Review | Untouchable
Having won a handful of prestigious awards and broken box office records across the globe, French Oscar entry Untouchable (The Intouchables, 2011) finally gets its UK release this week. Directed by Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache and inspired by a true story, this French dramatic-comedy tells the story of the unlikely friendship between disabled millionaire Philippe (François Cluzet) and his outspoken ex-con carer Driss (Omar Sy). It soon becomes clear that almost every bit of Untouchable’s international praise is justified.
Read the rest of this review at CineVue here.
AMONymous 