Watching X-Men: Days Of Future Past three times in a row wasn't a good idea. Why? Because everything else will just fail in comparison.
First 15 minutes of this movie felt like the longest drag. I just wanted something to happen but understandably, the movie had to set the story up. I just wished they had done it in a more exciting way than just having Tom Cruise's character having a sit down chat with Brendan Gleeson.
But once the Groundhog Day experience began, everything was back on track. The humour kicked in, the action came in, and I was impressed with a lot of the aerial cinematography.
Having Christopher McQuarrie doing the screenplay definitely beefed it up. But there was one part in the middle where I thought Emily Blunt went out of character. More of that in the spoiler section below as there's no way for me to explain it without spoiling it.
Doug Liman's direction had little flaws. He incorporated enough action sequences to compliment the story, and I thought that balance was quite perfect because, really, this wasn't an action movie per se. And his pacing was consistently on the beat that the audience was always kept engaged. Except, though, for one section which again was related to Emily Blunt above.
What I enjoyed most was like Groundhog Day, where Cruise had to figure out how to beat that reset and move his life forward, or in this case, kill off the aliens.
What I didn't like was how those aliens never really given their proper due, like why were they there or where did they come from. Also, I didn't like how this movie ended. I thought it was a bit of a cop out. I'll bring up a few more negatives in the spoiler section.
I also really enjoyed the two main leads, who have never disappointed so far. Blunt looked totally badass wielding that sword and tearing apart the Mimics. Also, Bill Paxton gave a great performance whenever he came on. I liked his accent, his tough and slightly crazy exterior, but unfortunately nothing more than one-dimensional character.
Cruise is always a solid action star, even at his age. A lot of people like to brush him off, probably started with the bouncing on the sofa during an Oprah interview. But he seldom or never has given a bad performance and always delivers. Will he ever get an Oscar nomination? I wouldn't rule him out.
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And now for the spoilers section.
Emily Blunt went out of character when she stopped listening to Cruise when they were resting at the farm. She has always listened to him, up to that point and suddenly, instead of looking for a solution, she went off ahead and committed suicide. One could argue that she was afraid of falling in love, but then again her character was very clear that she was there save the world. So that didn't make sense.
Another was how the movie explained to the audience that the ability to go into a reset was no longer there. Blunt's character was the first to experience that and I kept wondering, how would she know that she can't reset the day anymore unless she's dead? "I can feel it", was the only way they explained it to the audience.
A minor point here, but I didn't quite care for how Cruise could just punch that device-thing into his leg and he could immediately see where Omega was hiding. Another character deviation here, though not many may share my view, was that Blunt should have just killed Cruise there and then since he already knew where Omega was hiding and they were in a very dangerous situation of getting caught by the military.
And the ending, how or why Cruise was pushed further back into the past and waking up there was never really clear. I would explain that as an extra amount of whatever he got at first from the Alpha, engulfed him as he died and that reset was a stronger one so he went further back in time, an extra day to be exact. But it was such a lame way to give us a happy ending.
He should have just died. Or leave it open-ended. That would be my ending.
Although I have a lot of nitpicking here, however, the movie itself was highly entertaining and very fun to watch. So 8.5 seems fair.
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