James McAvoy

X-Men: Days of Future Past

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: X-Men: Days of Future Past
  • IMDB: link

X-Men: Days of Future PastHoping to bridge the gap between the success of X-Men: First Class and the more star-studded original X-Men films, and wash the taste of how horrifically that series ended, 20th Century Fox brought back director Bryan Singer and decided on adapting one of the long-running comic’s most popular stories for the big screen. The task set before Singer was no small one but the director steps up with X-Men: Days of Future Past and, in a Geoff Johns-ian effort of making disparate (and often inane) pieces fit, finds a way to deliver the best X-Men movie to date.

Opening in a dystopian not-too-far future the film sets up its basic premise of the time travel of a character’s mental consciousness in an opening action sequence involving Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) and Iceman (Shawn Ashmore) along with several mutants we haven’t seen before: Bishop (Omar Sy), Warpath (Booboo Stewart), Blink (Bingbing Fan), and Sunspot (Adan Canto). What we learn is that Kitty can send a X-Men’s mind back in time to his younger self to warn of coming dangers and change the outcome.

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Trance

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Trance
  • IMDB: link

TranceTwo thoughts ran through my head when the end credits rolled on the latest film from director Danny Boyle. First, Rosario Dawson is one hell of a beautiful woman. Seriously, this film will be known, even more than for its train wreck of a plot, for the infinite number of screenshots of the fully nude actress which will inevitably hit the Internet in the coming months.

And second, when you get past the smoke and mirrors, the endless twists, turns, misdirection, and Dawson’s full frontal nudity, there’s not really that much to Trance. Despite a strong set-up, the script by Joe Ahearne and John Hodge eventually crumbles under the wight of its preposterous plot. Trance is simply too complicated for its own good.

The film opens with the theft of a $25 million painting from an auction house in broad daylight by a brazen group of criminals (Vincent Cassel, Danny Sapani, Wahab Sheikh, Matt Cross). Despite the best efforts of our narrator, the heroic auctioneer Simon (James McAvoy) who is injured in the heist, the crooks make off with the painting.

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The Conspirator

/ / Home Video
  • Title: The Conspirator
  • IMDB: link

the-conspirator-dvdDirector Robert Redford examines the trial of the first woman put to death by the Unites States Government through the eyes of a reluctant young lawyer (James McAvoy) who ended up ruining his career with search for justice in a court that wanted nothing more than a quick conviction.

The story concerns Mary Surratt (Robin Wright) who was charged as a co-conspirator in the assassinations of President Abraham Lincoln (Gerald Bestrom) and Secretary of State William Seward and the attempted assassination of Vice President Andrew Johnson (Dennis Clark).

Redford assembles a first-rate cast to tell an engaging story, but it never reaches the level of storytelling you would expect. Although the screenplay by James D. Solomon showcases the how Suratt was railroaded into the gallows and strongly suggests her innocence, the film never takes a definitive stand on her guilt. This means we aren’t subject to Suratt’s experiences but only those filtered through those of her lawyer.

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X-Men: First Class

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: X-Men: First Class
  • IMDB: link

x-men-first-class-posterAfter jumping ship to make a largely forgettable remake of Richard Donner’s Superman, and leaving the franchise in the hands of Brett Ratner, Bryan Singer returns to the X-Men universe as a producer for a relaunch of the series (of sorts).

The newest film, which in some ways feels like a prequel and in others more of a half-hearted full-relaunch that lets part of the original film series stick around, is a period piece set duing the early 1960’s, specifically set around the events of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

After a short introduction of a handful of the characters as children (including an expanded version of the early footage of Magneto in a concentration camp we saw in X-Men), the film fast-forwards to 1962, where most of the story unfolds.

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