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X Men Days Of Future Past: Rogue Cut review - SciFiNow

X Men Days Of Future Past: Rogue Cut review

Rogue makes the cut in this director’s cut review of X Men Days Of Future Past

Ever since X-Men: Days Of Future Past hit our screens we’ve been asking ourselves, what happened to Rogue? She was in the posters and trailers, but all we get is a tiny cameo at the end? That’s it? Four films down the line, and she’s still not super strong and flying and calling people “sugar”?

But wait! Here comes The Rogue Cut! It’s named after her, so you just know it’s going to be full of Rogue goodness.

Except, actually, it really isn’t. Of the extra 17 minutes of running time, maybe ten minutes are Rogue-centric, if that. And in most of those minutes she’s in the background.

In the cut scenes, Xavier (Patrick Stewart), Magneto (Ian McKellen) and Bobby (Shawn Ashmore) head out to rescue Rogue from what was once Xavier’s School for Gifted Children, but is now a Sentinel base. Kitty (Ellen Page), clawed by the unconscious Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), can’t hold him in the past for much longer, but luckily they know someone who can borrow her power and do it for her.

There’s a nice sense of ‘getting the team back together’ once Rogue’s back in the mix, but ultimately she doesn’t bring anything to the movie.

The best things about the Rogue scenes are that they close a minor plothole about how the Sentinels found the future X-Men, and that they give the film one very cool sequence, in which young Magneto (Michael Fassbender)’s break-in at the Pentagon is intercut with old Magneto breaking into the mansion to rescue Rogue. It’s a nice reminder that even 50 years on, this ‘tame’ Magneto can still be just as much of a tough bastard as his younger self.

The other major inclusion is an additional piece of Mystique/Hank material. The scene restores a chunk of Hank (Nicholas Hoult)’s emotional arc, and also gives Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) a chance to put across her view without another character trying to persuade her to change her ways. This scene, more than the Rogue scenes, actually adds something to the movie that we didn’t have before.

Oh, and you’ll want to watch out for a cute little mid-credits scene. Like most of the additions, it doesn’t fix any of the film’s problems. But it’s good fun.