[7.8/10] The premise here could do all the heavy lifting on its own. The first part of “Days of Future Past” drops us right into the action. We’re in a post apocalyptic version of New York City sixty years into the future. The place is a wasteland. Sentinels roam the city smoking out mutant resistors. A grayer Wolverine is one the run and being bounty hunted by one of his own kind.
There’s no explanation for this, no exposition, just a bracing glimpse at how this war our heroes have been fighting could go terribly wrong. It immediately grabs your attention. Throwing the audience in cold creates intrigue for how things got this way, and how they can be fixed.
The resistance lands on a now-standard but still fairly bold solution. What if we went back in time to stop all this? That's the goal of the heroes in the future -- not to destroy the bad guys, but to return to the 1990s and stop this from happening in the first place.
I’ll admit, the excuse for Bishop, who was hunting his fellow mutants to go in place of Wolverine, is pretty rushed and pretty cheap. Why these guys would trust him, even if the Sentinels turned on him, is beyond me. But it’s an excuse to get Bishop back to the present, and I’m willing to accept this gimme.
Once there, I appreciate the admittedly convenient development that he cannot remember his mission exactly. Maybe it’s a product of time travel for anyone. Maybe it’s a result of the Sentinels blasting him as he left. Whatever the reason, it provides an excuse for why he doesn’t just march out and immediately take down his target.
That's the other smart thing the episode does. The writers peg everything to a clear goal. Someone has been assassinated. Bishop needs to stop the assassination in order to win the day. The mystery box is a good one, since we don’t know who gets assassinated, who’s the assassin, or exactly what’s going down, which allows the show to fill in the gaps.
Or at least narrow them. Bishop narrowing it down to one of the X_Men despite his janked up memory makes us wonder who among the faithful could be responsible for the act that would kick off mutants being put into internment camps and all the other horrors we witness. The danger of Bishop’s assaults, and the risk of provoking that future loom over everything.
Of course, this is still a superhero show, there’s a lot of fights between the X-Men and Bishop, between the X-Men and Nimrod, the super sentinel from the future, and other various skirmishes along the way. They’re mostly fine. The super folk have super weapons, but they ultimately don’t give our heroes too much trouble, as usual. There’s nothing particularly clever about how the bad guys are defeated. But the little wristband that keeps in the present is a useful narrative device to give them a weakness that will otherwise send them back to the future.
Bishop’s alliance with the X-Men, and him pointing to Gambit as the culprit creates plenty of intrigue for the second half (even if his gun blast is total schmuck bait).
On the whole though, this is the most exciting and daring story X-Men has told so far. The time travel, the stakes, the mystery, and the grim future to be avoided all elevate this one over the rest of what the series has offered so far. Can't wait for part 2!
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2023-04-14T19:58:43Z
[7.8/10] The premise here could do all the heavy lifting on its own. The first part of “Days of Future Past” drops us right into the action. We’re in a post apocalyptic version of New York City sixty years into the future. The place is a wasteland. Sentinels roam the city smoking out mutant resistors. A grayer Wolverine is one the run and being bounty hunted by one of his own kind.
There’s no explanation for this, no exposition, just a bracing glimpse at how this war our heroes have been fighting could go terribly wrong. It immediately grabs your attention. Throwing the audience in cold creates intrigue for how things got this way, and how they can be fixed.
The resistance lands on a now-standard but still fairly bold solution. What if we went back in time to stop all this? That's the goal of the heroes in the future -- not to destroy the bad guys, but to return to the 1990s and stop this from happening in the first place.
I’ll admit, the excuse for Bishop, who was hunting his fellow mutants to go in place of Wolverine, is pretty rushed and pretty cheap. Why these guys would trust him, even if the Sentinels turned on him, is beyond me. But it’s an excuse to get Bishop back to the present, and I’m willing to accept this gimme.
Once there, I appreciate the admittedly convenient development that he cannot remember his mission exactly. Maybe it’s a product of time travel for anyone. Maybe it’s a result of the Sentinels blasting him as he left. Whatever the reason, it provides an excuse for why he doesn’t just march out and immediately take down his target.
That's the other smart thing the episode does. The writers peg everything to a clear goal. Someone has been assassinated. Bishop needs to stop the assassination in order to win the day. The mystery box is a good one, since we don’t know who gets assassinated, who’s the assassin, or exactly what’s going down, which allows the show to fill in the gaps.
Or at least narrow them. Bishop narrowing it down to one of the X_Men despite his janked up memory makes us wonder who among the faithful could be responsible for the act that would kick off mutants being put into internment camps and all the other horrors we witness. The danger of Bishop’s assaults, and the risk of provoking that future loom over everything.
Of course, this is still a superhero show, there’s a lot of fights between the X-Men and Bishop, between the X-Men and Nimrod, the super sentinel from the future, and other various skirmishes along the way. They’re mostly fine. The super folk have super weapons, but they ultimately don’t give our heroes too much trouble, as usual. There’s nothing particularly clever about how the bad guys are defeated. But the little wristband that keeps in the present is a useful narrative device to give them a weakness that will otherwise send them back to the future.
Bishop’s alliance with the X-Men, and him pointing to Gambit as the culprit creates plenty of intrigue for the second half (even if his gun blast is total schmuck bait).
On the whole though, this is the most exciting and daring story X-Men has told so far. The time travel, the stakes, the mystery, and the grim future to be avoided all elevate this one over the rest of what the series has offered so far. Can't wait for part 2!