LAS VEGAS – 20th Century Fox brought some showmanship to CinemaCon today as the company's presentation to the nation's theater owners kicked off with a musical performance by Ester Dean and B.o.B of the song “Rio Rio” from “Rio 2.” And hey, who doesn't want to see Vegas showgirls doing the samba at 10 AM in the morning? That's a major wake up call.
The bigger news, however, was that Fox Filmed Entertainment Chairman and CEO Jim Gianopulos brought extended clips of some of the most anticipated films of the summer including Bryan Singer's “X-Men: Days of Future Past.” Gianopulos said the footage was from the beginning of the film, but after viewing it shouldn't be considered the actual first 10 minutes of the movie.
[Spoilers below.]
The sequence starts with Sentinel transports hovering over a decrepit future London. Below the city, however, are some familiar mutant faces including Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page), Iceman (Shawn Ashmore), Colossus (Daniel Cudmore) as well as Bishop (Omar Sy), Blink (Bingbing Fan), Warpath (Booboo Stewart) and Sunspot (Adan Canto). The Sentinels disembark from the transport drilling themselves into the ground (“Matrix” flashback). When they enter the Mutant's compound Kitty Pryde and Bishop race out of the main room while the rest of the “team” prepares to battle these Sentinels.
Unlike the recognizable purple and grey robot killers in the comic books, these mechanical killers are shape shifting and completely black. They appear somewhat similar in form to the robot from Fox's recent reboot of “The Day The Earth Stood Still” but try to wipe that from your memory for a moment. They are not the Sentinels you expect, but they are intriguing and certainly deadly.
As the Sentinels engage with our favorite mutants we witness Colossus turn into metal form, Iceman go complete “Ice” and ride an ice bridge (similar to footage from the recent trailer), Blink's teleportation windows are impressively executed, Sunspot looks powerful (although you might confuse him with Sunfire to be completely honest) and Stewart stunningly transforms himself into Warpath. No joke, the latter is almost completely unrecognizable from his “Twilight” days. To say he put on a new physique is a huge understatement.
One by one, unfortunately, all of these X-Men die at the hands of the Sentinels. The robots are too powerful and even mega-level mutants like Colossus (at least in the comics) are not strong enough to survive them. While these battles are waging,though, Bishop and Kitty Pryde have entered a secured vault where Kitty Pryde is using her powers (new powers? powers tied in with Bishop's set?) and concentrating on something with his brain. As the Sentinels finally burn through the vault, Pryde basically says something akin to “screw you” and then both she and Bishop vanish. In fact, everything vanishes. The Sentinels, any damage to the underground bunker. It's all gone. No bodies. No mutants. Everything is clean, but empty.
What Pryde and Bishop did is unclear at the end of the scene. Did they go back in time? Did they transport to another location? We'll all find out when “X-Men: Days of Future Past” opens on May 23.