Spoiler Alert! X-Men: Days Of Future Past Movie Review

X-Men: Days Of Future Past is undoubtedly the best X-Men film of the series and it is not due to its rumored $260 million opening box-office weekend.  It has so much more emotion and suspense with the obvious action than its predecessors.  Based on the 1980s comic book, Days Of Future Past is set in a future where mutants and some humans are hunted down and exterminated by robots called Sentinels.  As a last ditch effort, what is left of the X-Men, devise a plan to change a major event in the 1970s by sending Wolverine’s (Hugh Jackman) subconscious to his younger body.

His mission is to stop Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) from assassinating the Sentinels’ creator Dr. Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage).

After most of the remaining X-Men are massacred with the Sentinels closing in on Wolverine’s sleeping body, history was changed at the last second.  The final moments of action consisted of back and forth scenes between the 1973 and 2023.  The aforementioned massacre and the final attempt on Trask’s life at the White House.

This film shows the softer side of Wolverine.  Having to motivate a young Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) required him to manage his well-known intense temperament and be patient.

It had been 10 years since the events of X-Men: First Class.  So many relationship dynamics had changed with the the deaths of a few characters from ‘First Class’, the assassination of president John F. Kennedy, a young Magneto (Michael Fassbender) imprisoned and Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) being her own freelancer.

And speaking of the blue shape-shifter, she was the emotional focal point of the entire film.  This story is the bridge of her character development from the sweet loving Raven to the kick-ass mercenary known as Mystique.  There was a moment early on when Mystique’s finally decided to kill.

While going through some files in Trask’s office, she sees a photograph of her Angel’s (Zoe Kravitz) corpse with scars from being cut open.  The tear that drops from her eye as a reaction drove her to make two assassination attempts.  Her feelings toward what she has to do for the survival of mutants are heavily conveyed through conversations with Xavier and an attempt on her life by Magneto midway through the movie.

A good amount of humor was provided by Magneto’s son Quicksilver (Evan Peters) and his kleptomaniacal antics.   Visual effects were up to par and appeared seamless on screen.

However, given the scope of some of the mutants powers, like Storm (Halle Berry) the final battle in 2023 was obviously portrayed to make the Sentinels look more threatening by dialing them back.  There were some continuity issues as it pertained to Mystique and her character.  The story in this movie was that she was tortured and killed in the 1970s, which would not make any sense considering that she was very prominent in the first three X-Men films.

The post-credit scene showed foreshadowed the next film X-Men: Apocalypse with a young skinny Apocalypse who is constructing the ancient pyramids with his mutant powers.  To his left are his infamous four horsemen while beneath him is a mass of people chanting his name, En Sabah Nur.

Overall, this is more than just a great comic book film, but a great film similar to The Dark Knight and Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  However, the tone of the movie is tragic because of genocide.  There is a race trying to survive, a man and woman who is determined to save her people by any means necessary, another man rediscovering his purpose in life and a man fighting his own feral nature to lead his future leader back into the world.