Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		4.0

X-Men: Days of Future Past Blu-ray Movie Review

Let's do the time warp again (again).

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 13, 2015

In his new commentary released as part of X-Men: Days of Future Past (The Rogue Cut), Bryan Singer goes on record as stating he has something akin to a genetic disposition not to indulge in so-called Director’s Cuts, which of course begs the question as to what The Rogue Cut might be, then. As co-commentator John Ottman mentions, it could boil down to as little as a word or a smile, and indeed notators of the picayune are going to have a veritable field day with The Rogue Cut, though they’ll at least have the aforementioned commentary to guide them, for Singer and Ottman spend a bit of time detailing quite a few of the sometimes minute changes in this new version. 20th Century Fox has also given Blu-ray aficionados a bit of an “extra clue,” as it were, by labeling various chapter stops with information detailing what, if anything, has changed (see the list below). The Rogue Cut could in fact just as easily have been labeled The Beast and Mystique Cut, since one of the two “all new scenes” does in fact deal with them rather than Anna Paquin’s Marie (AKA Rogue). Diehard fans will no doubt want to check out this slightly longer take on the story, but even they may end up being more entertained by trying to figure out what has changed than by the changes themselves.

With the exception of two fairly short “all new scenes,” the rest of The Rogue Cut doles out its changes in often extremely subtle ways—a passing shot here, a brief word there. Therefore, the main arc of the story is really unaffected. For a recap of the basics of X- Men: Days of Future Past, please see our X-Men: Days of Future Past Blu-ray review.

The following chapter descriptions offer at least a passing idea of the scope of changes in this version. In the case of the “alternate scenes,” the changes are often very small, to the point that even diehard fans will need to go back to the original version to help track them down. The two new scenes are discussed in a bit more detail below:

Chapter 2 Alternate Scene
Chapter 4 Alternate Scene
Chapter 5 Alternate Scene
Chapter 6 Alternate Scene
Chapter 9 Alternate Scene
Chapter 10 Alternate Scene
Chapter 11 Alternate Scene
Chapter 13 Alternate Scene
Chapter 22 Alternate Scene
Chapter 28 Alternate Scene
Chapter 29 Alternate Scene
Chapter 30 All New Scene (at 1:33:52)
Chapter 31 Alternate Scene
Chapter 32 All New Scene (at 1:42:12)
Chapter 33 Alternate Scene
Chapter 34 Alternate Scene
Chapter 35 Alternate Scene
Chapter 37 Alternate Scene
Chapter 38 Alternate Scene
Chapter 39 Alternate Scene
Chapter 40 Alternate Scene
Chapter 43 Alternate Scene (closing credits with a whimsical insert)

The first of the two new scenes features a brief interchange between Beast (Nicholas Hoult) and Logan (Hugh Jackman), one which plays rather humorously on the seventies’ growing awareness of the dangers of smoking. But the bulk of this new scene is actually a kind of silly (even to Singer and Ottman, it should be added) romantic interlude between Beast and Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence). The second new scene is an even briefer sequence detailing the attempt to break Rogue (Anna Paquin) out of her lab hell. It’s an exciting sequence, with some really inventive intercutting and good special effects, but (again) it doesn’t really materially affect the overall arc of the film’s plot.

X-Men: Days of Future Past Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

X-Men: Days of Future Past (The Rogue Cut) is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. An admittedly unscientific comparison of bitrates at various points throughout this presentation and those on X-Men: Days of Future Past show very similar if not downright identical data, and so my comments about the first release are repeated here.

Digitally shot with the Arri Alexa, X-Men: Days of Future Past is an invigorating viewing experience, though sharpness and clarity are often intentionally tweaked by 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.

X-Men: Days of Future Past Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Similarly, aside from the few moments of new interstitial material, the sound mix on this release is identical to the first, and so my comments in our original review are repeated here.

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.

X-Men: Days of Future Past Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Disc One:

• Rogue Cut (1080p; 2:28:45) and Theatrical Version (1080p; 2:11:35) of the film.


• Audio Commentary by Bryan Singer and John Ottman (Rogue Cut Only). Ottman has a fascinating dual career as an editor and a composer, and he's a really great listen on this commentary since he looks at scenes with two different but interlinked sets of eyes. He and Singer joke quite a bit here, especially with regard to some of the last minute changes they perhaps unwisely decided to go for.


• Audio Commentary by Bryan Singer and Simon Kinberg (Theatrical Version Only). This is slightly more reserved than the Singer/Ottman commentary, but gets into a lot of interesting information about the story structuring.


• Second Screen App

Disc Two:

• Mutant vs. Machine (1080p; 52:41) is a long form set of featurettes that goes into a number of different elements, like story construction and how to deal with such a gaggle of characters.


• X-Men: Unguarded (1080p; 30:11) is a fun and casual conversation between members of the cast and crew.


• Gallery:

  Storyboards:

  Paris (1080p; 13:25)

  Climax (1080p; 30:56)

  Costumes (1080p; 2:55)

  
  

  Concept Art:

  Desert House (1080p; 00:30)

  Monastery (1080p; 2:50)

  Moscow (1080p; 00:45)

• Fantastic Four Sneak Peek (1080p; 1:49)

X-Men: Days of Future Past Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Lovers of snark hunts may well want to check out X-Men: Days of Future Past (The Rogue Cut), for a lot of the changes in this new version are on the teeny tiny side. In fact, had Singer and Ottman not mentioned some of them in their commentary, I personally probably wouldn't have noticed had I not done a scene by scene comparison with the original version. The two new scenes are okay, but hardly revelatory. All of that said, at least this new version sweetens the deal with some appealing new supplements, including two excellent commentaries and a whole second disc of new material. Completists will of course want this version, even without a 3D component (could that be coming?—stay tuned). Those who haven't yet sprung for the film on Blu-ray will probably want to compare the supplements of the two versions to see if something suits their fancy enough to tip the scales in favor of one version or the other. While the new material adds a number of great little moments and character beats, the emphasis really is on "little." One way or the other, X-Men: Days of Future Past is a fantastically fun and exciting outing, and with top notch technical merits and enjoyable supplements, X-Men: Days of Future Past (The Rogue Cut) comes Highly recommended.