Some great highlights, a lot of disappointment.

Rating: 5/10 (22 May 2014)

*Spoilers*
I tried not to get myself hyped up too much with this film because when Matthew Vaughn left I was pretty bummed out. I loved First Class and the new feel that X-Men had, I was really looking forward to him carrying that on. Unfortunately, Bryan Singer took over. Even with this lowered expectation, I found myself sitting in the cinema multiple times thinking 'Ok we get it, we understand what is at risk here, please lets get on with it!'.
To start with the good points.
The opening - visually amazing and the film was off to a great start. Blink was my favourite of this sequence, her powers of portals were used in really creative ways and kept the action flowing well.
I didn't think I would like Quicksilver at all but I found all the scenes he was in to be extremely entertaining and gave the film the comic book feeling again. You know, that feeling of just enough realism to make it believable yet enough humour to add the fun comic book side of things? He was that in spades and I found my self disappointed when he didn't join up with the X-Men for the rest of the film.
The actors. It was great to such an ensemble on screen and I'd even go as far as saying the young Charles (James McAvoy) stole the show, with the young Magneto (Michael Fassbender) a close second.
There were some nice little nods to most of the other X-Men films and it was good to see all the tie-ins. Also the very few humorous parts, one which comes to mind is when Wolverine walks through the metal detector and it doesn't beep. He looks back in confusion, expecting it to go off. These were great but were far to few.
Now for the not so good points.
Repetition. How many times do we need to hear 'We need to stop Mystique or it's the end of all mutants!?' in some form or another. You see this visually in the past with the older X-Men getting killed off. You don't need to keep telling the audience this as it's what we're seeing! Also, 'Mystique's DNA is the key', 'They can't get Mystique's DNA or else (you guessed it), it's the end of all mutants!'. This got old really quickly and unfortunately I came out of the theatre more frustrated than anything, forgetting the good parts that I liked.
Hollywood seems to think scripts don't matter nearly as much anymore, thinking it can be covered up by fabulous special effects. This is not the case at all and I hope writers are allowed to be more creative instead of getting creativity and risk taking shut down by the suits sitting in their offices.
Lack of action. We're watching this film for over two hours and the best action sequences you get is at the beginning! The ending sequences would have appealed to me a lot more if I hadn't been so frustrated with the script for over half the film.
All and all, this is a must watch film - but I'll only be seeing it the once. Singer, please pass the torch on to someone else and get the fresh feeling back that was First Class.