Sing Street (2016), X-Men: First Class (2011), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

Sing Street (2016)

Directed by John Carney, best known for his awarded winning 2007 musical feature Once, Sing Street tells the story of Dublin teenager (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) who forms a band with a group of misfits in order to win the heart of the girl of his dreams (Lucy Boynton), while his parents troubled marriage falls apart around him. Set in 1985, which apparently was a time of widespread economic malaise in Ireland, the film is appropriately gray and urban but without being too gritty. Often poignant this endearing coming of age film is infused with an eighties nostalgia and quirky but realistic feeling characters. Like Once there is a joyousness here about making music that is just infecting. In addition to a great assortment of period hits the original music for the film is just great, yet very unlike the folkie sound that was the earlier films signature. I will be seeking out this soundtrack. Deserving of becoming a sleeper hit Sing Street is one of the best films I have seen so far this year. ****

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With X-Men: Apocalypse come out soon I thought that I would try to catch up with the films in this series. Now X-Men has never been among my favorite franchises, I thought the first one was okay, rather liked the second one, but as with seemingly most viewers found the third film wanting. So accordingly I hadn't seen an X-Men film since X-Men III in the theater back in 2006. The franchise spawned a series of Wolverine origins films centering around Hugh Jackman's breakout character, and then a series of prequels which I was a little surprised to find really rejuvenated this property for me.

X-Men: First Class (2011)

This film is the origin of the X-Men, with the stories action taking place primarily in the year 1962 the films period setting really added a lot to this for me, it made the old new again so to speak. James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender successfully take over Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen's respective Professor X and Magneto roles as younger men. These characters much referenced earlier relationship from the previous films is satisfactorily fleshed out, as is the backstory for a number of other characters, as well as the introduction of several new ones. The character of Mystique takes up a much more central place in the franchise starting with this film, including new backstory. I wonder how much the part was built up around its actress Jennifer Lawrence as she becoming an increasingly big deal at the same time these new X-Men films were made. Though this kind of thing can be corny I did like the way historical events were integrated into this film, including its Cuban missile crises climax. ***

X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

The already jumbled seeming timelines of this franchise start to get really confused in this movie. Based on the classic Days of Future Past storyline from the comics, which I remember as perhaps the strongest arc of the 1990's animated series (from which I gained most of my X-Men knowledge), is here tweaked in quite a few places but better executed then I had expected. In an apocalyptic 2020's where mutants are being hunted to extension by robotic Sentinels, the near immortal Wolverine has his consciousness sent back into his own body in 1973 in an attempt to alter a key historical event and avoid this dark future. The event that Wolverine has to stop is the assassination of military scientist Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage) by Mystique at the Paris Peace Conference that brought a formal end to the Vietnam War. It seems Trasks' execution by a mutant will lend a credibility to the anti-mutant feeling he sought to excite, and in time lead to the Sentinel program which will threaten the existence of mutants in the 21st century. To put a stop to Mystique Wolverine enlists of the aid of the younger Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr from the previous film, as well as a number of other mutants including Nicholas Hoult's Beast and Evan Peters' Quicksilver. Canadian voice actor Mark Camacho appears as President Nixon. This films shows an utter contempt for the later chronology of the series, and especially so for the events of X-Men III, which it essentially ignores. I'm typically a stickler for chronology but I didn't like X-Men III so this movie gets a pass, also it was rather fun. ***

We will see shortly if this winning streak is continued with X-Men: Apocalypse.