As the seventh X-Men movie begins, New York City is in ruins, its residents nearly annihilated. Yet X-Men: Days of Future Past‘s true plight is overpopulation. The film is so stuffed with characters that including twin versions of Professor X and Magneto scarcely boosts the confusion.
The first X-flick directed by Bryan Singer since 2003’s X2 clicks in its middle section, which mostly focuses on the younger crew of heroes introduced in 2011’s X-Men: First Class. But that story, set in 1973, is framed by another tale that transpires 50 years later and is both ponderous and overcrowded.
Very loosely based on a 1981 Marvel Comics series, Days uses a sort of time travel to dovetail the two casts. In the future, robotic mutant-hunters called Sentinels murderously pursue the X-folks around the globe. Hiding at a ruined mountain temple in China — can’t ignore the largest cinema market outside North America — a tentatively allied Professor X (Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (Ian McKellan) discuss a plan.
Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) can transfer the 2023 consciousness of the near-immortal Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) to his pumped ’70s body. Then he can rally that era’s Professor X (James McAvoy) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) to stop Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) from killing mutie-hating inventor Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage), who’s about to get Nixon administration funding for his Sentinels program. By killing Trask, you see, Mystique has intensified — or will intensify — fear of mutants.
If that premise weren’t complicated enough, most of the characters sport multiple names. The Prof calls Mystique “Raven,” and he and Magneto address each other as, respectively, Charles and Erik. And don’t even think about catching the handles of the globalized new recruits who make their first X-bows in this episode.