The gargantuan robots known as the Sentinels from the original Marvel Comics Group in the 1960s were among the coolest of the X-Men’s foes. These 12 cent stories, fetching so much in collectors’ circles these days, have staying power for the simple reason that they were so well done in the first place. In X-Men 3: The Last Stand, we get a glimpse of the original version of the Sentinels, and that film would have fared much, much better if it were not a tease and those “Land of the Giant” big metal monsters pounded the earth for the full length of the film. See the image of the real sentinel at the end of this trailer.
The big and menacing artificial intelligence army surely influenced the “sentinels” of the Matrix, and the biggest flaw in this otherwise fine movie is the morphing of these robotic creatures into a hybrid of X-Men DNA and a smaller, more elite fleet of doom. That being said, this is still the best and most cohesive X-Men movie of them all and maybe it’s because the eyes of the world (the real world) are on this wonderful spate of comic book heroes in multi-hundred million dollar films, and the world wondering if the good fortune will keep expanding or bottom out. The Billionaire’s club in Boxofficemojo.com’s Worldwide All-time box office giants is getting bigger, and X-Men 5 – Days of Future Past, should zip its way up into that elite status.
This X-Men film lets its hair down. There is more levity, more than just Hugh Jackman cracking asides, and the levity works alongside the serious theme, and serious metaphors to save our planet from the people bomb. The younger Professor X is dealing with drug addiction, like your garden variety junkie, and a parallel between the outcasts that are mutants, drug addicts and same sex people once again is an underlying theme. Yes, the film can be a bit overbearing with the military having the control of the robots, the villain here, Trask, is as boring as the intolerable William Stryker from the previous X-Men sagas. It would be more preferable if the Sentinels came from outer space, came down from space to wreak havoc. But Singer sidesteps that by following the Star Trek route. Indeed, not only is there an image of William Shatner as Captain Kirk on a small television (does that make this the second pairing of Patrick Stewart and William Shatner in a film since Star Trek’s Generations?) – the latter day Magneto and Professor X appear to be on the Planet Klingon from Search for Spock (if not in the Himalayas.) Wolverine goes back in time a la Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home while the camaraderie of the X-Men is much like that of the Star Trek crew(s).
But how did Professor X get into the future since his untimely death in X-Men 3? Is it a dream sequence a la Bobby Ewing from Dallas when an entire year was wiped out with that realization? The idea of changing the life we know unbeknownst to all (except for a mind reader like Professor X) is an interesting and intriguing plot device, and Director Singer wraps it all up nicely.
”Is the future truly set” Jean Luc Picard…or is it Professor X – narrates over the Sentinels trailer for X-Men: Days of Future Past and the idea of nicking directly from other films of the genre, subtle and not-so-subtle flavoring new motion pictures with scenarios familiar to science fiction fans, is a big part of X-Men 5, and a big part of its success
X MEN Days of Future Past Trailer
If you recall a core element in another billion dollar franchise, John Connor in 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day said “Okay, the whole thing goes “The future is not set. There is no fate but what we make.” The Days of Future Passed trailer, released 2 months before the film on March 24, 2014, has that Terminator feel in the intro. But that’s ok, Bryan Singer has come back from X-Men 1 and X-Men 2 after Brett Ratner failed to make X-Men: The Last Stand hold up and he has corrected many of the past mistakes in a clever and satisfying way. Matthew Vaughn didn’t do badly with 2011’s X-Men: First Class but it is fifth time’s a charm for the X-Men – and Singer – with this film, has made the best of the X-Men movies, and that includes the two Wolverine spin-offs.
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Joe Viglione is the Chief Film Critic at TMRZoo.com. He has written thousands of reviews and biographies for AllMovie.com, Allmusic.com, Gatehouse Media, Al Aronowitz’s The Blacklisted Journal, and a variety of other media outlets. Joe also produces and hosts Visual Radio, a seventeen year old variety show on cable TV which has interviewed Jodie Foster, director/screenwriter David Koepp, Michael Moore, John Cena, comics/actors Margaret Cho, Gilbert Gottfried, Gallagher, musicians Mark Farner and Don Brewer of Grand Funk Railroad, Ian Hunter of Mott The Hoople, Ray Manzarek, John Densmore, Felix Cavaliere of The Rascals, political commentator Bill Press and hundreds of other personalities.
