X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

Director: Bryan Singer
Starring: Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender

Synopsis:
To avert a future in which mutants are driven to the point of extinction, Wolverine is sent back in time to put a stop to the chain of events that leads to the rise of the Sentinel Program, even if it means defending the man responsible for its creation.

Impressions:
X-Men: First Class helped restore faith in the X-Men movie franchise, so there was a lot of pressure on this one to maintain if not exceed expectations. Happily, this is indeed the case. With Bryan Singer back in the director's chair and Matthew Vaughn kept on as a producer to help preserve continuity between this and the previous film, we have a nice, organic continuation of the story. I thought they'd just drop X3 entirely, but some elements are kept without getting too bogged down in the problems of that film.

I would argue that even more so than First Class, this movie is able to evoke the feel of the era with its 70s sequences. The future sequences are good too, but I really think it's the past where this movie shines.

On to performances, the strong performances from X-Men: First Class carry over here as well as those from alums of the earlier films. As far as newcomers go, special credit goes to Peter Dinklage as Bolivar Trask. I also thought Mark Camacho was a decent Nixon.

Except for one sequence with the 70s-era Sentinels, special effects are pretty good with a lot of the future action set pieces having a lot of punch to them.

In conclusion, I strongly recommend this one. While I can sympathize with fans who'd like to see the rights to the franchise revert to Marvel so the X-Men can be rolled into the MCU, this movie shows that the franchise is still in pretty good hands. We'll see if this good trend continues to hold with X-Men: Apocalypse.

Rating:
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