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JUNE 4-10, 2014 UCW 21 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM Yes, X-Men: First Class got five stars and X-Men: Days of Future Past (132 minutes) is only getting four. First Class gave me reason to hope the franchise was back on track; Days of Future Past proved it. First Class was rated five because I compared it not only to the atrocious celluloid vomit called X-Men: Last Stand, but also to a horrifically underwhelming X-Men Origins: Wolverine. In all honestly, First Class could have been a lot worse and still received a five-star rating. Days of Future Past, on the other hand, really needed to earn my love. At the end of the day, it was good but it wasn't amazing. The main reason it wasn't amazing is my devotion to the two comics that inspired the feature, Uncanny X-Men 141-142. The outline from the original story is in place, but subtly altered to focus on different characters. I mean, heaven forbid there be an X-Men movie that doesn't revolve around Wolverine! Admittedly, the changes are probably barely noticeable for the post- millennial, but are jarring for those of us who followed the comics from our childhood. The best part of the film was the integration of actors from the original trilogy, but bringing in Sir Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellan meant reconciling the starter trilogy with the reboot, and therein lays a major problem or two (and several dozen minor problems, but you can look those up on the Internet). First, at the end of Last Stand Xavier's (Stewart) body was dead while his consciousness was in some coma guy's body. At the beginning of Days of Future Past, it's like that never happened. Second, a major plot point has Future Magneto (McKellan) recommending that Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) get Past Magneto's (Michael Fassbender) help. However, Future Magneto forgets to mention scads of Very Important Information — such as Past Magneto not currently being in contact with Past Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) and also being a raging jackass. Did it not occur to anybody that trying to create an X-Men Universe analogue to the Avengers Universe would generate all kinds of irreconcilable differences, primarily due to accepting the first two X-Men movies while trying to erase the third? You know, I could go on for pages, hating on Brett Ratner and nitpicking the continuity problems, but overall Days of Future Past was pretty good. The film opens with some pretty cool sequences setting up how Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) is capable of sending back the consciousness of Bishop (Omar Sy) to warn them of impending Sentinel attacks so they can avoid being killed when the attack occurs. Blink (Bingbing Fan) is a cool character, and if the writers fall short of explaining how her abilities combine with Kitty Pryde's to enable Wolverine to go back in time, whatever. Once future Wolverine's mind inhabits Past Wolverine's body he wanders over to Xavier's House of Broken Dreams to find Past Xavier (James McAvoy) wallowing in self-pity and drug addiction while his manservant, Hank McCoy/Beast (Nicholas Hoult), practices being co-dependent. The three recruit Quicksilver (Evan Peters) to break Past Magneto out of Pentagon jail. Of course, as amusing as that section of the film is it would have been wholly unnecessary if Xavier had just de-toxed a little bit sooner and used Cerebro early in the film. Anyway, once Past Magneto is free the whole gang minus Quicksilver heads to Paris to have a few laughs, following the revelation that half the cast of First Class were torture-killed by Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage), which sets the second half of the film in motion. As I'm sure you can guess, good triumphs, Last Stand is wiped out of the X-Universe continuity, and everyone goes home happy. Overall, a strong entry with a nice after credits nod to the next planned film, X-Men: Apocalypse (2015). Continuity Is for the Weak-Minded X-Men: Days of Future Past (Rated PG-13) by HEATHER GRIFFITHS HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing Writer. COMMENTS? Editor@upand- comingweekly.com. 910.484.6200.