I'm not sure why they're calling this the final trailer for “X-Men: Days Of Future Past.” With a month to go before the film's release, I would imagine we're going to get pounded with marketing materials that are going to show us more and more of the film in an effort to get audiences to show up.
My own kids have been working to catch up with the “X-Men” series for the last month, and just tonight we watched “X-Men: First Class.” I was struck again by just how much I like that film's take on the relationship between Charles (James McAvoy) and Erik (Michael Fassbender), and there is no way to quantify how lucky they were to sign Jennifer Lawrence before she became a giant star. This film may feature an army of cameo appearances from the cast of the first three movies, but it is still very much a sequel to “First Class,” and a bridge to “X-Men: Apocalypse,” where we'll once again follow the younger cast.
I'm curious to see how Singer tries to tie everything together with this movie. The early draft of the script I read was ambitious and interesting and made some very smart character choices. I hope the film retains all of that while also taking full advantage of what I'm hearing is the biggest budget of any Fox film not made by James Cameron.
This new trailer (included here below in both domestic and international variations) goes big, and you can sort of piece together the entire movie from what you see here if you really pay attention. I'm surprised how much of Magneto's escape from his specially-constructed prison under the Pentagon is shown in this new trailer, but considering that's the big moment with Quicksilver, I guess they figured it was worth it to be able to show him in action. There's also a couple of quick shots from a sequence where Magneto evidently picks up an entire stadium and then drops it on someone.
More than anything, this film has to work to make sense of a timeline that's gotten somewhat muddled as they've made six films in the series so far. There are things that don't quite make sense, and doing this sort of time-travel epic gives them all the excuse they would ever need to reboot things and make it all make sense again. This may also end up being the last time we see some of these people in the film series, so I hope they send them out on a high note.
Here's the domestic version…
And here's the international one…
You can see how similar they are, but I think the international one is cut better, particularly in that final stretch.
We're close now, and hopefully I'll be able to see the film before I leave for the Cannes Film Festival. If not, then I'll be seeing it as soon as I'm back.
Either way, “X-Men: Days Of Future Past” is in theaters May 23, 2014.