X-Men: Days of Future Past (****)

Directed by: Bryan Singer

Starring: Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Evan Peters, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan, Halle Berry, Nicholas Hoult, Peter Dinklage, Ellen Page, Omar Sy, Shawn Ashmore, Josh Helman, Lucas Till, Evan Jonigkeit, Fan Bingbing, Adan Canto, Booboo Stewart, Daniel Cudmore, Anna Paquin

Seen: May 23^rd 2014

**** Out of ****

Bryan Singer has come to the rescue of a franchise he brilliantly kicked off with the original X-Men in 2000 and improved on with the even better X2 in 2003. The problem was most of the movies inbetween: Brett Ratner’s X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) was bad, Gavin Hood’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) was terrible, Matthew Vaughn’s X-Men: First Class (2011) was okay-to-good, and The Wolverine (2013) by James Mangold was good, but not great. Bryan Singer is back though, and you clearly see who is the X-Men master, the creator of the original X-Men template. Days of Future Past is brilliant, with creative action set-pieces, a complex and involving, yet easy to follow plot, and great performances from everyone. I well and truly enjoyed every minute of this movie, and if you’re an X-Men fan you cannot miss it.

In a bleak future, the year 2023, the world is a dark place where mutants are hunted by Sentinels, super robots created for just that purpose in the early 70’s. Even humans sympathetic to the mutant cause are targets, no-one stands a chance. It’s here that a few mutants fight, constantly only surviving Sentinel attacks because of a neat trick by Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat (Page) and Bishop (Sy), whereby Shadowcat projects Bishop’s conscience back in time a few days to warn them of any attacks. Professor X/Charles Xavier (Stewart), Magneto/Erik Lehnsherr (McKellan), Wolverine/Logan (Jackman) and Ororo Munroe/Storm (Berry) join them in China and devise a plan to send someone back to 1973, before the creator of the Sentinels, Bolivar Trask (Dinklage) was assassinated by Mystique (Lawrence), to stop the assassination as well as the fast-tracked development of the Sentinels. Wolverine is the only one who can physically survive this, so he is sent back with the task of uniting the young Professor X (McAvoy) and Magneto (Fassbender) in stopping Mystique to change the future. Things are complicated though, as Magneto is very securely imprisoned, Professor X is very stubbornly unavailable, and Mystique is very single-mindedly set on accomplishing her plans, which could lead to disaster, and this makes for a great movie, with an excellent story accompanying great action and battle mayhem.

While there are some incongruities in the entire series’ stories (Professor X’s ability to walk and still being alive, among others), Days of Future Past pulls everything together into a coherent whole, and sets it all on a road to potential greatness again. The cast from First Class and the cast from the first trilogy are reconciled – without meeting onscreen (only Wolverine crosses over between the two time-lines). The majority of the movie plays out in the 1973 time-line, but both timelines feature spectacular visuals and incredible battles. The 1973 time-line feels like a very cool X-Men period piece (with mutants still being full-on mutants, like First Class), while the 2023 future scenes are much more post-apocalyptic science fiction (think The Matrix or Terminator). Visually the movie is incredible, with some jaw-droppingly cool sequences all through. There are desperate battles between mutants and the indestructible Sentinels that feature a thrilling level of creativity, there’s a daring escape from a highly secure facility that’s facilitated by the speedy Quicksilver/Peter Maximoff (Peters), and a massive finale set-piece featuring Fassbender’s Magneto to name a few. The funny and excellently entertaining scene featuring Quicksilver rivals the Nightcrawler scene from X2 in its creativity and beats it in its humorous genius.

The movie is excellently realised, and every single actor is fantastic, every one, no matter how big or small the role. Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine remains awesome and impressively cool, while Jennifer Lawrence has completely taken over the role of Mystique with a great performance. The best of the lot in my opinion is Michael Fassbender though – when his Magneto is onscreen you can’t help but to forget about everything else – he brings acting with gravitas to a comic book movie like few before him. Days of Future Past brings the X-Men movies into the grimly entertaining arena of Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies, and I enjoyed it very nearly as much. Bryan Singer has brought the X-Men back to, and surpassed, its initial glory with Days of Future Past, this is what an X-Men movie should be.