There are a lot of fans who liked but didn't love Bryan Singer's X-Men movies, so many of them were disappointed to learn that the filmmaker would be helming the follow-up to Matthew Vaughn's excellent X-Men: First Class. However, with X-Men: Days of Future Past, the director has proven that he is capable of making a 5* X-Men movie, and it's a movie which will deservedly find a place in many a Top 10 lists of great comic book adaptations moving forward. Perhaps the biggest issue with what has been called an "inbetweenquel" is Singer's decision to just pick and choose the elements he wants from both the comic books and the previous movies. No explanation is given as to why Wolverine has his Adamantium claws in the future after the events of The Wolverine, while characters are conveniently killed off and powers are altered and played with simply to serve the plot. Instead of coming up with a story featuring the X-Men we know and love from the comics, Singer and writer Simon Kinberg change them to suit themselves. It's lazy storytelling, but this admittedly unfaithful comic book adaptation remains one of the best instalments in a series of unfaithful movies.
The plot of X-Men: Days of Future Past works, and the time travel elements are well explained and handled nicely. Though the future scenes all look a bit bland and Matrix-y, Singer does a mostly solid job of bringing the 1970s to life and the soundtrack is killer. While we only pick up with a few of the First Class cast members (the explanation behind where the rest are is mostly satisfying though), they're perhaps the best ones and Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, Nicholas Hoult and Jennifer Lawrence are all on top form here. Contrary to popular belief, this movie isn't the Wolverine show, and while he does play a prominent role in X-Men: Days of Future Past, the relationship between Magneto, Professor X and Mystique is still very much the focus. New and old cast members alike are all very good, in fact. Peter Dinklage's Bolivar Trask doesn't get the same sort of powerful material we've seen from the actor in Game of Thrones, but as a lead villain of sorts, Singer couldn't have found anyone better.
Bryan Singer seems to have finally mastered the art of delivering solid action scenes as well, and this movie contains some of the best fights from not only the X-Men franchise, but superhero movies as a whole. The special effects are top notch, although it's disappointing that Singer went for such a futuristic design for the Sentinels in both the past and future scenes. Sure, they look great, but seeing the classic designs would have been so much more satisfying and they would have worked a lot better in the 1970s. Again, the director seems to just want to do things HIS way, and that includes using technology which is ridiculously too advanced looking for that time period. Then again, Captain America: The First Avenger did the same during its WWII scenes, and in this type of universe, it's hard to be too critical about that. It's just a shame that the director didn't quite embrace this time period as much as Matthew Vaughn did with X-Men: First Class.
Perhaps X-Men: Days of Future Past's greatest achievement is what it sets up for the future by the time the credits roll. There's a possibility we could see two new franchises spinning out of the events of this movie, but it more importantly manages to make up for so many of the X-Men movies' past mistakes, and the last few minutes are immensely satisfying. At two hours, the movie flies by and it leaves you wanting more. It's obviously not clear whether or not Bryan Singer will return for 2016's X-Men: Apocalypse, but it would be no bad thing at this point. Now, one thing that has to be mentioned here is just how great Evan Peters is as Quicksilver. Called "Peter" here due to those pesky rights issues, his scenes are actually some of the best, with a slow-motion sequence particularly incredible from a visual standpoint. He was a better choice than Juggernaut for Magneto's breakout, and it should be very interesting to see if Joss Whedon and Aaron Taylor-Johnson can now top this in Avengers: Age of Ultron.
Despite being plagued by some familiar problems in Bryan Singer's X-Men movies, this thrilling time-travelling adventure combines the casts of two eras of the franchise for possibly the best instalment yet.
