Film Preview: The X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

Poster

Additional posters can be found below.

Trailer Link

Release Date:

May 23, 2014

Synopsis:

From IMDb: “The ultimate X-Men ensemble fights a war for the survival of the species across two time periods in X-Men: Days of Future Past. The characters from the original X-Men film trilogy join forces with their younger selves from X-Men: First Class in an epic battle that must change the past – to save our future.”

Poster: A- (2) / A (2) / B+ / C+ (6) / B / C (4) / B

Review: (#1-#2) Starting off with two posters suggesting an Authoritarian future sets up the overriding danger of the future the X-Men are trying to protect. (NOTE: Image #5 is displayed to the right. Image #1-#4 and #6 on are displayed below)

(#3-#4) The second designs create a very fascinating blend showing future and past selves, carefully merging the features of each of our two key figures, Magneto and Professor Xavier. It’s a risky design choice that worked out admirably well.

(#5-#11) Even though the fifth poster is a very common style, it can still be done well artistically and this one does it. The remaining six are paired character posters that sadly don’t create enough distinction to merit applause.

(#12-#17) This foreign alteration of the film’s primary design works as well as that one did, except with a Sentinel-overwatching background that’s a tad distracting. The next four Italian designs are lacking visual flair, but may have more to do with being used as “campaign” posters, even if ineffective ones. The last design looks like a re-touching of the prior character posters mixing Wolverine with a character few are familiar with making it a lot less familiar, thereby less interesting even if the figure seems stately.

Trailer: B- / B+

Review: The producers seem to think audiences are familiar enough with the characters that they don’t need more details of the story in the film. That assumption may lead to confusion and disinterest as this design lacks the epic feeling past trailers have had.

(#2) The producers know how to ramp up the excitement for these films. The second trailer heavily improves on the first and establishes this as more of a predecessor to X-Men: First Class rather than the previous X-Men films even though it includes the casts of both series.