Above: Jennifer Lawrence as Raven in "Days of Future Past"
Spider-Man in an alleyway, deserted
by his powers; Superman, staring mournfully down at Earth; the Dark Knight
alone, his head bent in shame. Throughout
the twenty-first century, the image of the lonely superhero has been a powerful
one in movies, an exaggerated embodiment of the isolation that so many of us
feel. Yet in the comic book-based
blockbuster “X-Men: Days of Future Past” (which debuts on DVD and Blu-Ray
today), the key theme is not loneliness, but connectivity.
On the
surface, the movie’s story (which tracks the mutant superhero Logan’s quest to
preempt the apocalypse) looks like a save-the-world standard. But through his trademark visual precision,
director Bryan Singer makes the film into something more—an expansive vision
that shows how human beings are united across borders and even eras. The result?
A movie that, through its images, attacks the notion that people are too
different to unite for the good of the world.
That idea is planted in the film’s first scene—our
introduction to a shadowy future in which mutants have been hunted to
near-extinction by robots called Sentinels.
It’s also where Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) is still
fighting to save his fellow mutants by donning Cerebro, a silvery helmet that
connects his mind to “every living being on the planet.”
It’s fascinating how Mr. Singer visualizes what Xavier
sees in his mind’s eye—mutants across the world, represented by a swirling
matrix of hazy, bright-red specters the color of cranberry juice. But we don’t just see their experiences—we
hear them as well. “Down on the ground,
now!” an angry voice shouts from this visual maelstrom. And soon afterwards, we hear a lone, defeated
sob, one that belongs to someone we can’t see.
What does all this mean?
More than it initially appears too.
Cerebro is a plot device (designed to help Xavier locate the film’s other
main characters), but Mr. Singer mainly uses it as an arena to portray communal
suffering. Through the wide shots of the
countless, reddened representations of mutants and their cries, we see them in
pain not as individuals, but as a species.
As such, “Days of Future Past” finds Mr. Singer at once sobering us with
his depiction of global persecution…while simultaneously reminding us that none
of these characters are truly alone.
Eventually, Xavier does find his allies and kicks the
real story off by sending Logan (Hugh Jackman) back to 1973, where he tries to
help Xavier’s younger self (James McAvoy) stop the Sentinels from being constructed
in the first place. But the younger
Xavier can’t succeed alone—he needs the help of his shape-shifting sister,
Raven (Jennifer Lawrence), who left him back in Matthew Vaughn’s “X-Men: First
Class.”
And here, Mr. Singer’s interest in connectivity
reemerges. He catches up with Raven in a
Paris airport where suddenly, an old woman turns to her and says, “Raven. Stop running.” It’s Xavier, using Cerebro to speak through
this woman to his sister. Immediately, Raven
stands and walks briskly away, but Xavier keeps calling to her through others,
from a dark-haired flight attendant to a thin middle-aged man to a
geeky-looking kid (played by Mr. Singer himself). Though they don’t know it, these disparate
people are united for a moment, strangers bound together on a mission.
Why is this scene so crucial? Mainly because it visualizes the potential of
a united humanity. The world of “Days of
Future Past” is a divided one—not only are the film’s mutants hated by humans,
but the mutants themselves can’t seem to agree on anything. That’s why it’s so important that in fleeting
moments like the airport scene and that Cerebro sequence, Mr. Singer suggests
that it doesn’t have to be that way. To
him, collaboration and friendship are just as viable as violence and hatred.
There’s more to the movie as well; its script (by Simon
Kinberg) has a lot to say about right and wrong, second chances, and turning
the other cheek. But despite such
thematic clarity, “Days of Future Past,” like so many of Mr. Singer’s films,
transcends words and circumstances to express something more interesting
through its visuals. And that something
is a compelling idea—that though we may feel alone, we are part of a greater
network that can span space and time, if we want it to.
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