8.3 | / 10 |
Users | 4.5 | |
Reviewer | 4.5 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
The X-Men, including Wolverine, must set aside old rivalries and travel in time to change the past to avert a future crisis which threatens the mutant population and the world.
Starring: Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Halle BerryAction | 100% |
Adventure | 95% |
Sci-Fi | 79% |
Comic book | 72% |
Fantasy | 69% |
Period | 5% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 MVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 kbps)
French: Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 kbps)
Portuguese: Dolby Digital 5.1
Russian: DTS 5.1
Thai: Dolby Digital 5.1
Ukrainian: Dolby Digital 5.1
Specs from actual disc.
English SDH, Portuguese, Spanish, Danish, Estonian, Finnish, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Russian, Swedish, Thai, Ukrainian
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (2 BDs)
UV digital copy
Blu-ray 3D
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 5.0 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
Patrick Stewart is no stranger to projects featuring time travel, having appeared in one of the most fondly remembered two-part episodes from Star Trek: The Next Generation, “Time’s Arrow,” which capped the fifth season with a cliffhanger and then found resolution in the premiere episode of the sixth season. That might automatically qualify him in his guise as X-Men’s mentor Charles Xavier as an expert, but he has a little competition from an unlikely source in X-Men: Days of Future Past: William Shatner. Whether due to the cheeky influence of scenarist Simon Kinberg or co- producer and director Bryan Singer, one Captain James Tiberius Kirk makes a cameo appearance of sorts on a video monitor in the background of a couple of quick scenes in X-Men: Days of Future Past, talking about—yep, time travel. Star Trek referents aside, X-Men: Days of Future Past presents a relatively straightforward time travel saga, one without many of the typical trappings of conundra and paradoxes that often inhabit such tales. Instead, this is a film with a mission, but figuratively and literally. While the X- Men franchise has been a cash cow for Marvel and Fox, reaction to the various films in the ever expanding X-Men universe has been somewhat spotty, and the recurrence of Singer at the helmsman seat (after similar duty on X-Men: First Class) was seen as a chance for the franchise to continue to reinvigorate itself. But within the film itself, there’s also a simple and easy to understand quest, a trip back to 1973 wherein Logan, AKA Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), attempts to unite a young Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Erik Lehnsherr, better known as Magneto (Michael Fassbender), in a desperate gambit to prevent Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) from murdering a scheming scientist named Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage), a man whose invention of mutant obliterating cyborgs known as Sentinels has wreaked havoc on the mutant population in “current” time.
X-Men: Days of Future Past is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment with both MVC (3D) and AVC
(2D)
encoded 1080p transfers in 2.40:1. Digitally shot with the Arri Alexa and for the first time in native 3D for its 3D version, X-Men: Days of
Future
Past is an invigorating viewing experience, though sharpness and clarity are often intentionally tweaked with any number of post-
production
bells
and whistles at times. As with previous X-Men entries, there's quite a bit of aggressive color grading on display, from the slate grays
and
cool blues of the "contemporary" sequences to more of a honey golden ambience in the seventies timeframe. Nonetheless, detail and even
fine
detail remain surprisingly strong, to the point that even in dim, heavily graded sequences things like pores on skin are easily visible. In more
normal
lighting, fine detail is astounding at times (see some of the close-ups in the screenshots accompanying this review). CGI can tend to look just
slightly soft at times, especially with regard to some of the "portals" the open in attack scenes which allow the mutants to travel through mini-
wormholes to a new location. Contrast is strong, helping the film to overcome murkiness in the many darker sequences. There are no issues
with
image instability or compression artifacts.
The 3D experience here is largely flawless, and what continually impresses is how immersive it can be even in some extremely dark
sequences, including the rather dank opening several minutes. Singer repeatedly places objects in the foreground to instantly establish
planes of
depth, and even in very dark, shadowy environments, there's a sense of being able to enter the frame. Ironically, some of the sun dappled
seventies
moments don't pop with quite the same authenticity, though this is one of the more routinely visually immersive 3D films in recent memory.
There
are occasional gimmicks with objects hurtling forward directly at the viewer, but the 3D immersion has been handled rather subtly here quite a
bit
of
the time, with things like the chess set on board the X-Men jet providing a foreground focal object while characters converse in a clearly
delineated
background. I noticed no instances of cross talk or other distractions in the 3D presentation.
Note: We are unable to take screenshots from 3D discs (that do not have a simultaneous 2D component). Therefore the main menu
shown on the 20th screenshot is from the 2D version. The 3D main menu does not offer any Extras option.
X-Men: Days of Future Past features a blisteringly effective DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 track that blasts off into the stratosphere from the opening attack scenes and rarely lets up for the next two hours or so. There's omnipresent LFE courtesy of not just the battle moments but more nuanced foley effects and general sound effects like a roaring high speed train or the thrust of the Sentinels' propulsion systems. Dialogue is very cleanly presented and is mixed nicely, even in some very busy sequences. A number of scenes feature large crowds, whose sounds spill through the surrounds creating a very lifelike a authentic sounding ambience. Fidelity is top notch and dynamic range is incredibly wide in this problem free track.
Note: All of the supplemental content is housed on the 2D disc included in this Combo Pack. There is no supplemental content on the 3D disc.
- Mutant Experiments
- Blueprints
- Sentinel Construction
Time travel may be the "McGuffin" of X-Men: Days of Future Past, but it's a fun device that allows for some gentle skewering of a bygone age while bringing together a coterie of X-Men young and old. The film is a bit too pat for its own good, offering up conflicts only to paper over them and move right along, but under Singer's assured direction and without any distracting time travel paradoxes to muck up the works, everything zooms along swimmingly to a satisfying if (again) perhaps too overly convenient finale. The set pieces here are wonderfully staged, and as is typical of the X-Men films, performances are surprisingly solid and un-cartoonish. Technical merits here are first rate, and X-Men: Days of Future Past comes Highly recommended.
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