X-Men: Days of Future Past Movie Review

X-Men: Days of Future Past is the 7th movie in the X-Men franchise. At this point in the franchise the only X-Men who has scored their own movie is Wolverine. Days of Future Past sees the reunion of the entire cast. This plot (like many of the X-Men narratives) is a little involved and a tad confusing.

This one is set in the future, where a government run program has created a large army of robots called Sentinels that are built to track and kill mutants. The Sentinels are unbeatable as they were created by Dr. Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage), a scientist and businessman in the 1970’s. Trask captured Mystique and used her blood to create shape shifting robots who can adopt a mutant’s power and use it against them.

A small group of mutants has been hunted by the Sentinels and developed a system to out-smart them using a form of time travel. Some of this group should be relatively familiar if you’ve watched other X-Men movies as it consists of Bobby (Shawn Ashmore), Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page), and some new faces like Bishop (Omar Sy). The small group is found by Professor X (Patrick Stewart), Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), Storm (Halle Berry), and Magneto (Ian McKellen).

Professor X informs the group that the Sentinels cannot be beaten. But he has a last ditch plan to try to save the remaining mutants. Using a somewhat unusual form of time travel, Wolverine goes back to 1973 to warn Mystique that she cannot kill Trask. Professor X hopes that by letting Trask live, it will alter the course of history and the Sentinels will not be created with Mystique’s DNA. The rest of the movie is set in 1973 and the entire plot is Wolverine, young Professor X, and young Magneto attempting to find Mystique to alter the events of the 1970’s.

There are a great many twists and turns in this one. Of course Magneto can’t ever just do the right thing and flip flops more times than you can really count during the course of the film. Wolverine in the 1970’s was awesome as always (can you tell I love Wolverine?). I also was highly entertained by Peter Dinklage being somewhat of a villain. He isn’t given a lot of screen time but he makes the best of it and I almost wish you saw more of him in the other X-Men movies.

There are a few awesome battle scenes. I especially liked the ones with the Sentinels. It was equal parts sad and entertaining to see the X-Men realize their own powers were useless. Another of my favorite scenes involved Quicksilver (whom I love). While breaking Magneto out of the Pentagon there is a truly well done scene where objects remain suspended in the air and Quicksilver moves throughout the room to take out the bad guys and save the good guys. He moves bullets that are going in slow motion and even has time to taste a sauce that has been tossed into the air. I love that his personality shines through even when he’s completing a task to save lives.

There were some odd moments, as per usual. At one point old Professor X talks to young Professor X to encourage him to do the right thing. That was a little trippy. But other than that, this movie contained all the best parts of the X-Men. Magneto and Professor X’s rivalry, Wolverine’s no nonsense attitude, Mystique slipping through everyone’s fingers constantly, and the mutants banding together to avoid annihilation. If you’re looking for a great X-Men movie with the team reunited then this will be the one for you. Just don’t even bother asking me about the timeline because I really can’t explain how it works. In fact, I’m not really sure that it does. If you can ignore the wack timeline, then this is a great one to watch. 

Film or Movie: Movie
You’ll like this movie if:
1. You want to see all of the X-Men reunited
2. You want to see both the old and young versions of your favorite characters in the same movie
3. You like action with a lot of intricate plot details

For more X-Men reviews, check out my X-Men Rankings page!