The most striking thing about 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' is its generosity. Huge franchise installments are rarely as enjoyable as this one. They aren't as inventive, richly detailed, surprisingly varied, elegantly crafted or improbably stirring. This production, which turns on the tantalizing intricacy (or intrinsic illogic) of time travel, didn't have to lavish money on an elaborate time-freezing sequence for the sake of pure delight. It did, though, in keeping with the prevailing copiousness. The film isn't flawless; sometimes too much of a good thing becomes a sprawl. But the new 'X-Men,' directed by Bryan Singer from a script by Simon Kinberg, feels urgently important while it's happening and thoroughly satisfying once it's over. That's my definition of a really good time.

《X战警：逆转未来》(X Men : Days of Future Past)最突出的莫过于它的丰富多彩。虽然已经有许多部《X战警》系列电影上映，但几乎没有一部能像该剧这么让人过瘾。该片独出心裁、描写细腻、情节多变、制作精良、给人一种超乎寻常的刺激。这部影片主要讲述了一段迷幻的（或本质上说并不合逻辑的）时空穿越冒险，但并没有单纯为达到视听享受而把钱浪费在时间凝固场面的细节刻画上，而是花重金保持影片的丰富内涵。该片也并非毫无瑕疵，有时亮点过多反而会让人找不到亮点。但这部由布莱恩•辛格(Bryan Singer)导演、西蒙•欣贝里(Simon Kinberg)编剧的新《X战警》应该会让人有绝对的满足感。观看这部电影符合我对享受好时光的定义。

The temporal trip is from a grim future to the not so distant past. In that future, Manhattan is a ragged ruin, Moscow is a frigid wreck -- snow even falls in the auditorium, if you see the film in stunning 3-D IMAX, as I did -- and persecuted mutants, plus some humans who tried to help them, trudge through subterranean tunnels that make Apple's '1984' Superbowl commercial look like a walk in the park. As for the X-Men and their desperate band, they're fighting, and losing, a war of survival against giant machines called Sentinels, so Hugh Jackman's Wolverine is sent back in time to enlist the X-men's younger selves in changing human history and improving the odds for our species.

这段穿越旅行从晦暗的未来开始，到不太遥远的过去结束。在未来的这个时间点，曼哈顿已是一片废墟，莫斯科则是冰冷的死城，如果你像我一样看效果奇佳的3-D IMAX的话，甚至会感觉电影院里都在下雪。受到迫害的变种人，以及一些试图帮助变种人的正常人在神秘通道中艰难前行，相比之下，苹果公司1984年超级碗商业广告中穿越地道的镜头简直就像在公园里散步。变种人在与哨兵机器人的生死战斗中落败，所以休•杰克曼(Hugh Jackman)饰演的金刚狼被送回到从前，找回X战警年轻时的自己，改写他们和人类的历史。

Wolverine's destination is 1973, when certain events involving Raven, and her very special DNA, became (or become, depending on the time frame), a pivot point for humanity. The protean Raven, aka Mystique, is played once again by Jennifer Lawrence. That prompts me to wonder yet again if there's anything this protean star can't do well, and to say that the X-Men ensemble -- Mr. Jackman, Ms. Lawrence and, among others, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Nicholas Hoult, Ellen Page, Halle Berry, Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart -- constitute the finest repertory company in all of contemporary moviedom.

金刚狼的目标时间是1973年，当时牵涉瑞雯(Raven)和她身上特殊DNA的事件使人类处于紧要关头。瑞雯又被称作小魔形女，再次由珍妮弗•劳伦斯(Jennifer Lawrence)饰演。这让我不禁要问：这位多才多艺的明星是不是没什么角色演不好？饰演X战警的一班演员――杰克曼、劳伦斯、以及詹姆斯•麦卡沃伊(James McAvoy)、迈克尔•法斯本德(Michael Fassbender)、尼古拉斯•霍尔特(Nicholas Hoult)、艾伦•佩奇(Ellen Page)、哈雷•拜里(Halle Berry)、伊安•麦克凯伦(Ian McKellen)和帕特里克•斯图尔特(Patrick Stewart)等其他人员组成了当代影坛上的最佳剧组。

The 1973 setting, a decade after the tumultuous events of the previous installment, proves to be a dismaying one for Wolverine. Eager to rally his comrades for a mission that will demand their full powers, he finds them in various states of decline or distress. In one sense that is standard time-travel stuff, but there's a twist. Instead of the mature, famously explosive and all-too-experienced Wolverine going back physically, his mature consciousness is inserted into his younger self. This gives him, and therefore us, a poignant sense of the others -- particularly Mr. McAvoy's shattered Charles -- who, trapped in their slice of time, lack a full sense of themselves, and how they may change the future.

影片的时间场景设在1973年，即上一部《X战警》中的动荡事件发生10年之后，这一时间场景令金刚狼感到沮丧。金刚狼急切想集结他的同伴们进行一项需要他们全力投入的任务，但他发现他的同伴们都处在各种衰退或困顿的状态。从某种意义上说，这是标准的穿越元素，但导演加入了一点新意。影片并未将成熟、脾气火爆且经历颇多的金刚狼的肉身穿越回去，而是将他成熟的意识植入到年轻的金刚狼身上。这使金刚狼以及观众对其他变种人怀有悲悯之情，尤其是对麦卡沃伊饰演的脆弱的查尔斯(Charles)。其他变种人因为被困在自己的时光片段里而对自己没有完整的意识，也不完全清楚他们能如何改变未来。

In a film that's always willing to leaven deadly serious drama with cheerful changes of pace, the 1973 setting provokes plenty of laughs at cultural artifacts -- Lava Lamps, Pong, Ding Dongs, sloshing water beds. Peter Dinklage is Dr. Bolivar Trask, the villainous inventor of the Sentinels; it's good to see this excellent actor in a role of genuine stature. President Richard Nixon is part of the proceedings; played wittily by Mark Camacho, he comes off better and worse than you might suppose. (You never knew about Nixon's role in putting the Sentinels into production, but then you probably didn't know that JFK was a mutant.) And in a film that's as remarkable for depth of feeling as it is for action, Roberta Flack's 'The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face' resonates with a haunting scene in which the convenient wonders of time travel bring Mr. McAvoy's younger Charles face to face with Patrick Stewart's grave embodiment of the old man Charles will become.

在这部极力希望用愉快的节奏变化为极其严肃的剧情添彩的电影中，1973年这一时间场景中出现的文化产品（例如熔岩灯、乒乓球、叮咚蛋糕和流动水床）也博得观众的很多笑声。彼特•丁拉基(Peter Dinklage)饰演波利维尔•特斯拉克博士(Bolivar Trask)，邪恶的哨兵机器人(Sentinels)的制造者；这位出色的演员终于能饰演他实际身高的角色了。理查德•尼克松(Richard Nixon)总统也出现在剧中，由马克•卡马乔(Mark Camacho)饰演，演得好坏或许和你的预期有出入。（你永远不知道尼克松在将哨兵机器人投入量产方面所起的作用，或许也不知道约翰•F•肯尼迪(JFK)也是变种人）。在播放到时光穿越使麦卡沃伊饰演的年轻查尔斯与帕特里克•斯图尔特饰演的年老查尔斯的肉体面对面时的场景时，片中响起了Roberta Flack演唱的《The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face》。

At moments like that, what's gone before and what's to come merge so powerfully that it's easy to believe -- to choose to believe -- in these mutants with singular gifts as figures in a larger plan. (A plan whose next installment, 'Apocalypse,' has already been announced.) But an action adventure stands or falls on its action, and the set pieces here rank with the best of the genre: busting a prisoner out of solitary confinement in the bowels of the Pentagon; repurposing RFK Stadium into a corral around the White House (it's overachieving, as such feats go, but impressive all the same), and that wonderful time-freezing sequence in which Evan Peters's Quicksilver not only stops a screenful of people and objects in their tracks but rearranges them ever so carefully, with an artist's eye for composition.

在这样的时刻，过去和未来如此强烈地融合在一起，以致于让观众很容易相信（或选择去相信）这些和《X战警》系列电影中一样具有某种天赋的变种人。（导演已宣布该系列电影的下一部是《X战警：启示录》(Apocalypse)。）不过一部惊险动作片成功与否还是取决于其中的动作，《X战警》系列堪称这一题材中的上佳作品：将单独监禁的囚犯从五角大楼的重牢中救出；将肯尼迪纪念体育场(RFK Stadium)变为白宫的围城（由于特技的运用，效果超出预期，令人十分震撼）；精彩的时间停止场景，伊万•彼得斯(Evan Peters)饰演的快银侠(Quicksilver)不仅可以让人类和物体在各自的轨迹上静止，而且从艺术家们的眼光来看，对他们的重新安排也非常仔细。

A small army of artists has contributed to the film's near-seamless vision, chief among them the cinematographer, Newton Thomas Sigel; the production designer, John Myhre; the film editor, John Ottman (who also composed the score); the visual-effects supervisor, Richard Stammers; and the costume designer, Louise Mingenbach. What they've done is distinctive in its own right, but particularly so when compared to many of today's big-budget spectaculars that ask audiences to settle for semicoherent stories, muddy photography, erratic color timing and digital effects so variable, if not shoddy, that many of them must be played out under cover of darkness. No settling is required in this one. Everything is of a piece, and it's dazzling.

该电影画面近于完美，这得感谢以下几位艺术家：最先需要感谢的是电影摄影师西格尔(Newton Thomas Sigel)；还有美工设计师迈尔(John Myhre)；电影剪辑奥特曼(John Ottman)；视觉效果统筹斯坦默斯(Richard Stammers)；服装设计师Louise Mingenbach。他们凭藉自身实力，使这部电影显得与众不同，特别是与当今不少大成本巨制相比较。这些大制作经常需要观众去适应其牵强附会的情节、晦暗的摄影画面、怪异的色彩调配以及数字效果等等，还有不少电影即便算不上粗制滥作，但也是寂然收场。但这部电影则不会给观众这种感觉，该电影每一处都很精致，所以十分出彩。