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defrogIt was a three-day weekend in Hong Kong, and we could have spent it at the dragon boat races, but it was too damn hot, so we spent it in the cinemas instead. And as you’ll notice, there’s a theme.
X-Men: Days Of Future Past
There can’t be too many films who serve as a sequel for two different films at the same time, but this is one of them, following up both The Last Stand and First Class (the latter of which is a prequel to the first three X-Men films, if you follow that).
That’s possible thanks to the story’s time travel element – with mutant-hunting machines called the Sentinels enslaving and killing mutants and human sympathizers alike, the X-Men send Wolverine to 1973 to stop Mystique from killing Bolivar Trask, the inventor of the Sentinels. And to do that, he'll need the help of young Professor X and Magneto, both of whom hate each other.
Lots of people have heralded DoFP as the best X-Men film in the series. That’s probably true – provided you’ve seen the other X-Men films. Anyone else is going to be puzzled as hell, although I’ve seen all of them and there’s a few things here even I don’t understand. Still, as a franchise film, it really does capitalize on the reboot of First Class and takes things up a level to the point of putting the franchise back on track.
I do have one personal gripe: while I don't usually insist that film versions of comics stick 100% to the source material, this is one time I really wish they would have stuck with the comic-book storyline in which Kitty Pryde, not Wolverine, goes back in time. I know why they made the change – Wolverine is the most bankable character in the series – but I have two good (if biased) reasons for wanting to see Kitty Pryde be the hero this time:
(1) Kitty has always been my favorite X-Men character.
(2) Wolverine has dominated the series so much he has his own spin-off film franchise now, so would it kill them to let someone besides Wolverine take the lead for a change?
Edge Of Tomorrow
I confess I wasn’t expecting much from this for a couple of reasons: (1) it’s a Tom Cruise vehicle, which doesn’t mean what it used to, and (2) it’s based on All You Need Is Kill, a Japanese novel whose book-jacket blurb sounded derivative and never really interested me.
But man is it good. Yes, it’s basically a mashup of Starship Troopers and Groundhog Day (see also: Source Code). But the set-up is great:
Aliens invade Earth, and everyone joins forces to fight them. Cruise plays William Cage, an officer and former ad executive who serves mainly as a TV talking head to promote the war effort, but has zero interest in combat. Suddenly he finds himself on the frontline of the final battle that’s supposed to be a cakewalk but goes horribly wrong. For once, Cruise isn't playing a tough-guy hero but a coward who is happy to pitch wars on TV as long as he doesn’t have to actually fight them. Once he’s caught in a time loop, he’s forced to live that battle over and over again – until he can figure out a way to change the outcome.
Despite some familiar tropes, what really makes it work is that director Doug Liman and the screenwriters don’t take it too seriously. Which is good partly because there’s not much here you haven’t seen in other films, and partly because (like most time-travel films) the time-travel stuff only makes sense if you don’t think about it too much – which is also why Liman wisely doesn’t spend much time explaining it. It also helps that Cruise – whatever you think of his action films – is an accomplished enough actor to pull off Cage’s transformation from smug TV personality to hardened, desperate combat vet. And he gets able assistance from Emily Blunt as Rita Vrataski, the badass vet who is also the only person who understands what’s happening to him.
The ending is a bit problematic, but overall it’s very well done – more so than any SF blockbuster has a right to be.
War all the time,
This is dF
X-Men: Days Of Future Past
There can’t be too many films who serve as a sequel for two different films at the same time, but this is one of them, following up both The Last Stand and First Class (the latter of which is a prequel to the first three X-Men films, if you follow that).
That’s possible thanks to the story’s time travel element – with mutant-hunting machines called the Sentinels enslaving and killing mutants and human sympathizers alike, the X-Men send Wolverine to 1973 to stop Mystique from killing Bolivar Trask, the inventor of the Sentinels. And to do that, he'll need the help of young Professor X and Magneto, both of whom hate each other.
Lots of people have heralded DoFP as the best X-Men film in the series. That’s probably true – provided you’ve seen the other X-Men films. Anyone else is going to be puzzled as hell, although I’ve seen all of them and there’s a few things here even I don’t understand. Still, as a franchise film, it really does capitalize on the reboot of First Class and takes things up a level to the point of putting the franchise back on track.
I do have one personal gripe: while I don't usually insist that film versions of comics stick 100% to the source material, this is one time I really wish they would have stuck with the comic-book storyline in which Kitty Pryde, not Wolverine, goes back in time. I know why they made the change – Wolverine is the most bankable character in the series – but I have two good (if biased) reasons for wanting to see Kitty Pryde be the hero this time:
(1) Kitty has always been my favorite X-Men character.
(2) Wolverine has dominated the series so much he has his own spin-off film franchise now, so would it kill them to let someone besides Wolverine take the lead for a change?
Edge Of Tomorrow
I confess I wasn’t expecting much from this for a couple of reasons: (1) it’s a Tom Cruise vehicle, which doesn’t mean what it used to, and (2) it’s based on All You Need Is Kill, a Japanese novel whose book-jacket blurb sounded derivative and never really interested me.
But man is it good. Yes, it’s basically a mashup of Starship Troopers and Groundhog Day (see also: Source Code). But the set-up is great:
Aliens invade Earth, and everyone joins forces to fight them. Cruise plays William Cage, an officer and former ad executive who serves mainly as a TV talking head to promote the war effort, but has zero interest in combat. Suddenly he finds himself on the frontline of the final battle that’s supposed to be a cakewalk but goes horribly wrong. For once, Cruise isn't playing a tough-guy hero but a coward who is happy to pitch wars on TV as long as he doesn’t have to actually fight them. Once he’s caught in a time loop, he’s forced to live that battle over and over again – until he can figure out a way to change the outcome.
Despite some familiar tropes, what really makes it work is that director Doug Liman and the screenwriters don’t take it too seriously. Which is good partly because there’s not much here you haven’t seen in other films, and partly because (like most time-travel films) the time-travel stuff only makes sense if you don’t think about it too much – which is also why Liman wisely doesn’t spend much time explaining it. It also helps that Cruise – whatever you think of his action films – is an accomplished enough actor to pull off Cage’s transformation from smug TV personality to hardened, desperate combat vet. And he gets able assistance from Emily Blunt as Rita Vrataski, the badass vet who is also the only person who understands what’s happening to him.
The ending is a bit problematic, but overall it’s very well done – more so than any SF blockbuster has a right to be.
War all the time,
This is dF
