'Blu-ray or Bust'
X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST—THE ROGUE CUT (2015, UR, 148
minutes, MARVEL ENTERTAINMENT/20TH CENTURY FOX)
Oh, what a tangled web studio execs weave…
To cut Anna Paquin out of the theatrical version of DAYS was
a slight upon the raging pubescent genes of every comic book fan on the planet.
How dare they! Rogue was/is a necessary part of the X-Men cannon! And it is
Anna ‘freaking’ Paquin, man—she GETS NAKED on HBO’s “True Blood”!!!
COMMUNIST PIGS!
(Ahem) Sorry. Got a little emotional there. But honestly,
who wouldn’t? You bring two great casts together, and you leave out a character
that was THE story arc of the first X-Men film? In a film directed by Bryan
Singer, the guy that casted her in the first place? Preposterous, I tell you.
So, Singer decided to do the fans a solid. He recut the
film, and added all of the Rogue stuff not in the theatrical version. And let
me tell you something, fellow geeks and action fans: it only makes the film a
wee bit better than the theatrical release. While it is nice to see Anna in
this version of the film, it is not the inclusion of her, necessarily, that
makes the difference. It’s the extra curse words, the extra little touches of
violence, and, in one incredible sequence, it is the parallels in the
timelines.
You have to wait through more than half of the film to get
your first glance at her, but that works to the film’s advantage. In the future
timeline, she is being held prisoner by scientists wanting to harness her
mutant powers to make the Sentinels, which are mutant killing robots from hell,
even bigger bad asses. So in what amounts to the second prison break of the
film, she has to be rescued in order to help keep Logan (aka “Wolverine”, aka
Hugh Jackman) in the past so everyone’s younger selves can stop Bolivar Trask
(aka “Tyrion Lannister”, aka “Peter Dinklage”) from releasing his Sentinels
upon the world to begin with. Confused yet? Don’t be. If you haven’t already
seen the film, nothing I can say here is going to convince you to go watch it
now. Porpoise testicles. There—any more intrigued yet?
Anyways, breaking Rogue out proves a tad difficult, and here
is where the alternate timelines come into play. If you ever doubted Singer’s
ability to tell a great visual story, you should be ashamed of yourself. In
fact, go stick your head in the toilet and flush it eight times. Singer didn’t
just add the deleted Rogue scenes—he recut the dang movie. He shows future Magneto
doing good, at the same “time” that past Magneto (aka “David” from PROMETHEUS,
aka “Michael Fassbender”) is doing bad. Effective, and nearly poetic in its
execution.
There are a butt-load of extras on the disc, some of which
(like a new commentary from Singer, which gets more in-depth as to why certain
scenes, including several that have nothing to do with Rogue) were initially
cut, but included here. This includes a well-paced commentary, completely
different than that of the original cut.
The next X-MEN movie is already filming, and it looks as if
the stakes will be a lot higher this time around. Which is where this re-birth
of the franchise has been nearly ingenious; the third installment will finally
give X-fans what they have been pining for: a big bad mutant villain. However,
all current indications are that Rogue will NOT be in this film…(yeah, I’m
going to leave it hanging right here)…
Film Grade: A (for the extended cut, and I’m sticking by my
B+ for the theatrical version)
Special Features: A
Blu-ray Necessary: Most definitely (it has Jennifer
Lawrence, Anna Paquin, and my current man-crush in it, do you really have to
ask?)
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