Prologue
As a little kid I remember my parents arguing over what kind of car they should buy. Seems like the old dependable ’54 Ford we had was about to pass on to that automobile junkyard in the sky. My mom, being the most practical in the Woods Clan, suggested buying a “used car.” I thought my dad was gonna have a heart attack. “Are you kidding? You buy a used car; you’re buying someone else’s problems!” I always agreed with my dad on that fine point of suburban living: NEVER buy a used car! It took a while for the used car industry to pick up on the prejudice people have about used cars. The title, USED CARS, was alarming to the consumer. It does sound like you’re buying someone else’s piece of junk. So, the used car industry decided that what they needed was a name change, a name change that was far less negative. And you know what they came up with? PRE-OWNED CARS. Yep. And it worked pretty well. It worked so well that others in the “used” industry picked up on it. It’s not used books anymore, now its pre-read books, or pre-listened to CDs, or pre-viewed DVDs! The movie industry was not so quick to join in on the name game. However, in the 21st century the movie studios pumped out a slew of “remakes” of horror and sci-fi films, and for the most part the remakes were, well, pretty sucky. They even tried their hand at remaking a few of the successful horror genre franchises: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street . . . the audience pretty much rejected these tries and the word “remake” became a very dirty word. So, how did Hollywood solve the problem? Did they give-up trying to remake successful franchises? No, they just changed the name REMAKE to REBOOT. Reboot . . . does sound better than remake. It sounds computer literate, more like you are actually creating a new story “based” on an old story that—
HEY! WHAT THE HELL DOES ANY OF THIS HAVE
TO DO WITH YOUR REVIEW OF THE X-MEN MOVIE, DAMNIT?”
X-Men:
Days of Future Past
or
How to
Reboot Your Failing Franchise
If you are a fan of the X-Men
franchise, the older one, then you will probably like the way they transition
into the reboot. It’s nice to see all the actors who played in the original
franchise on screen . . . at least one more time.
The whole script of Days of Future
Past is really exceptional. Good enough, at least, that the few timeline
mistakes that they make are not worth even mentioning. Dialogue is clean and
exciting. The young actors are really outstanding. They make the material their
own, and if you are going to create a whole new world for people to believe in,
that’s exactly what you have to do. Make it work for you.
There are, however, a few problems
with the CGI Sentinels. Both the future and the 1973 versions of the Sentinels
are rather cartoonish with the future bots looking and moving about sort of like the Dementors from
Harry Potter. However, the CGI guys redeem themselves with an outlandish hand-to-hand combat scene
between the Pentagon guards and Quicksilver. Although the whole movie was
great, that scene was a real crowd pleaser; people were actually applauding during and after it!
So, it’s a good movie . . . no, a great movie, one that is definitely
worth seeing on the big screen, and one to buy when it comes out on DVD. I'm going
to miss the original cast, though. I hope there will be times when we get
to see them all again . . . in the future!
rrw o5-25-14
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