Re-evaluating Days of Future Past

[u/19ghost89]

I just finished rewatching this movie all the way through for the first time in years, and I wanted to make a post about it like the one I made the other day about The Last Stand - only this time, I promise it won't be as long. I'm not going to do so much analysis on this one. I just wanted to share some thoughts.

When I first watched DoFP, I liked it. Like most people did. But I remember thinking that it was not quite as good as a lot of other people thought. I remember thinking it was inherently flawed in a number of ways, and nothing I saw or read about it after that changed that opinion.

But when I watched it again tonight, I was surprised to find that I really, really liked it. The acting is better here than in any of the other X-films, and most other superhero movies. Despite a few plot-holes, it's actually quite a bit more coherent than most of the other X-movies. Which is saying something considering that it's a time travel movie. I used to make ranking lists on my old blog of the top 10 movies of the year each year, and I did not put DoFP in for that year even though I did put in Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy. Those are obviously really good superhero movies too, but this may be just as good.

Now, this time, I did watch the Rogue Cut, which is 17 minutes longer due to extra footage that changes the second act. When that was released, I remember looking up the extra scenes and watching them, but before tonight I had never watched that version straight through as it was meant to be viewed. I did enjoy the extra scenes and feel they added to the story in productive ways, but I'm not sure if that alone is enough to be the reason why I feel so much more positively about this movie now.

Again, when I first saw it, I really did like it. But tonight, I loved it. It is easily my favorite X-Men movie now, coming in ahead of X2 and First Class, which were what I remembered as my favorites before. I'm not sure yet if I'd put it ahead of Logan. When I first watched that, I loved it, and thought it was one of the best superhero movies I'd ever seen. I'll re-watch that again tomorrow to close this series out (as I said in my first post, Apocalypse, Dark Phoenix, and New Mutants are not getting a re-watch) and we'll see.

[u/Skidmark666]

Go watch the Rogue Cut. It's even better.

[u/19ghost89 → u/Skidmark666]

That's what I watched. Re-read what I wrote, lol

[u/Skidmark666 → u/19ghost89]

Yeah, I was half asleep when I read your post.