My thoughts on Bryan Singer's return to the franchise

Rating: 7/10 (22 June 2016)

So X-Men: Days of Future Past is about the dystopian future, where sentinel robot drones seek out and kill all mutants and X-Men. The X-Men realize there is no way to save themselves from the sentinels and their inevitable extinction if they don't send someone's conscious back in time to change the course of history, and prevent the sentinels from being initiated onto the mutants. The only one strong enough to go back in time is Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), and it's up to him to unite Professor X (James McAvoy) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) in the past to prevent the grim future from happening. There is actually quite a lot of depth to this movie's plot, and I did enjoy many aspects of it. This movie exudes confidence from Bryan Singer, and I love how he can take X- Men back for himself after a couple of terrible X-Men movies from 20th Century Fox that put his work in the first two movies to shame. This movie is a sequel to one timeline of X-Men and another at the same time. The cast from X-Men First Class is the same, which is great to see. James McAvoy is really great as Professor X in this movie, and Michael Fassbender is still killing it as Magneto. These actors are more prominent in this movie, and the dystopian future is focused on less. Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen are given a little less screen time, which is fine by me because they still sell their role. Peter Dinklage as Trask is also the antagonist for a portion of this movie, and he is very good. He always gives a good performance, even if he isn't too picky about his roles. Like how anyone would ever agree to star in an Adam Sandler movie based off of old videogames is pretty beyond me. The performances that stood out the most to me in this movie were definitely James McAvoy, Hugh Jackman, Michael Fassbender and Evan Peters (Quicksilver). The characters all had great chemistry with each other on screen, and the majority/entirety of these actors performances was in the past. We also got to see a new side of Wolverine and young Professor X in this movie, with Wolverine being more reserved and less aggressive, and Professor X being at his lowest low, and essentially a junkie at the start of the film.
The best part about the characters in this movie is that you can identify with them. With the exception of Trask, the character motivations are never confusing or unclear, so that at least you can understand one of the antagonists reasoning. Although Peter Dinklage gave a good performance, there isn't that much substance to his character, and he didn't have that much of a motivation for his character. What was a really interesting concept in this movie, was that there wasn't a clear, defined antagonist. The antagonist is different for different characters and their perception of the unfolding events. This movie also had a couple of great action scenes, and some intense moments as well. There's a fantastic scene involving a lot of mutants that sets the third act into motion in Paris, where a lot of civilians witness mutant powers for the first time. The way they shot that scene with different excerpt shots that were meant to look like people filming on cameras from the 1970's really added to the terror of the humans. As for the action scenes, they were all choreographed just fine and were kept to a minimal. I would say that for this type of movie that less is more, because it made room for more creative fight scenes that I won't spoil, but went beyond just average fist-fighting. One problem I had with this movie was that although the story was unique to the universe and really interesting, there were still a couple of predictable points in the movie. The story this movie told was really good, but some character dilemmas or choices were really easy to predict, which took me out of the movie somewhat, but didn't ruin the movie for me.
This movie has a lot of hope and emotion stretched throughout, and I like how well balanced all the characters roles and screen time is in this movie. Every person feels necessary to the movie. Bryan Singer did a great job with this movie. I liked how a part of this movie was a somewhat emotional and mental conflict, which can sometimes be hard to come by in superhero movies, where usually the conflict just lies with the antagonist. Bryan Singer did intentionally mess with the X-Men timeline, which I liked since it was basically a big middle finger to the terrible movies in the series. People who are supposed to be dead are still alive, vice versa and a couple of other changes that are kind of confusing if you don't go into the movie with the knowledge that it doesn't build off the last movie. It's a kind of jerk move to disregard another director's work in the same franchise, even if it is terrible, rather than build off of it. But I can totally forgive this movie for it since it solves all the problems that X-Men 3 and Origins: Wolverine had. I had a great time with this movie, with a couple of fun Marvel references that seem to be obligatory in any Marvel movie. I will definitely say that this is Singer's franchise, and this movie just proves it.
+ Fleshed out characters - Trask's character pretty bare and dry cut + Compelling story - Somewhat predictable at points + Great Acting + Confident directing courtesy of Bryan Singer 6.6/10