Written in the past

Rating: 6/10 (19 August 2014)

When you go to watch this movie, don't buy popcorn at first. Instead buy it sometime in the future, travel back to that very moment and gift yourself the popcorn. I implemented this strategy and ended up watching the movie on an empty stomach. The point of this exercise? Nothing, just as the senseless time travel shown in the film. This much anticipated installment in an otherwise brilliant series will leave you disappointed. That is, unless you choose not to strain your brain and just accept the events as they are. The film opens in a dark and desolate future that was set in motion in 1973, when brilliant scientist Dr. Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage) created a series of giant robots called Sentinels for the sole purpose of wiping out mutants, whom he claimed were a direct threat to the human race. Prof. Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (Ian McKellen) devise a plan to have Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) send Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) back to the year when Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) assassinated Trask -- it turns out that Mystique inadvertently accelerated the Sentinel program when she was subsequently captured by Sgt. William Stryker (Josh Helman), who succeeded at harvesting her DNA to make the robots more powerful than ever before. Upon arriving in the past, Wolverine sets out to change the future. In the end, the viewers are left hanging with a dilemma about the fate of the dystopian future world. It seems as if it never existed. However, if it didn't exist, none of the events in the movie would have occurred in the first place. There are plenty of other loopholes and inconsistencies that will constantly bug an observant viewer. The movie also leaves some open questions, which I hope will be resolved in the future. For example, where does a mutant who can walk through walls (Kitty) get the power to transport people back in time? How did Wolverine get his metal claws back in the future, given that he lost them in the fifth installment? How did Xavier survive the violent disintegration previously seen in the series? On the bright side, some well directed action scenes, especially when Quicksilver saves everyone in slow motion, provides the much needed excitement one expects from an X-Men film. Towards the end, all you can hope is for the next installment, X Men: Apocalypse to be much more sensible, thrilling and satisfying than this movie.