One of the rare gems of this year's movies

Rating: 8/10 (26 May 2014)

The story follows Wolverine as his mind is sent back through time, using Kitty Pride's powers, into his old body to stop a losing war between mutants and the robotic anti-mutant Sentinels. He then finds and convinces young Charles/Professor X and Hank/Beast to help him. Charles is able to walk by taking Beast's serum, in exchange of temporarily losing his mutant powers. Aided by Quicksilver, they free Erik/Magneto from his concrete prison. Logan tells the group that the war starts from the moment Raven/Mystique kills Trask, the scientist who designs the Sentinels. The group catches Raven just as she's about to kill Trask and her cover is blown. Trask escapes and Erik shoots Raven to prevent anyone getting her DNA that can help Sentinels against the mutants. Hank disrupts Erik but he manages to fire and hit Raven. Logan sees Stryker in the room and he goes haywire, injuring Kitty in the present. Erik keeps on hunting Raven, as bystanders watch in horror, but Beast tackles Erik as Raven escapes. Erik manages to escape after subduing Beast. People panicked at the sight of mutant powers in public and Trask wins funding for the Sentinels.
Raven ambushes Erik, but Erik tells her Trask has gotten her DNA from the blood on the street. When Logan's group reaches home, Charles goes ill as he needs the serum. Logan convinces Charles not to take it and to read his mind, by which the old and young Charles converse. Erik slips into the Sentinel shipment and reconfigure the non-metal Sentinels into having metals. Charles locates Raven but fails to stop her. Logan's group then goes to the Sentinel launching event in the White House to stop her. Erik goes to the same venue. Logan's group arrives then Charles locates and subdues Raven. Suddenly the Sentinels, under Erik's control, turns on and go haywire so the VIPs flee to a vault bunker. Erik then drops a stadium around the White House, pinning Charles in the debris. Erik yanks the vault up. At the present, fighting also rages on and the mutants slowly but surely losing their ground, dying one by one.
Logan and Hank attacks Erik, but he sends a Sentinel on them. Hank handles the Sentinel, but Erik incapacitates Logan, tying him with metal bars then throws him into the river. Erik then rips open the vault and makes a speech about the mutant world order. Raven, disguised as the President goes out from the vault and challenges Erik. Hank patches his serum and the Sentinel goes from him into targeting Erik and Raven. Erik disjoints the robot and Raven shoot him and removes his helmet. Charles then subdues Erik but Raven aims then gun to Trask. Charles reasons with her. As the present Sentinels fire beams to kill the remaining Logan and Kitty, they all disappear. Raven yields in, dropping the gun thus altering the future. Logan wakes up in the present Xavier school, seeing all those who have died still live. He meets Charles and Charles realizes that it is the Logan from the past and begins explaining what Logan has missed from the past to this altered reality.
The base story is just exceptionally great. Though it's not as epic as other sci-fi gems, but it's able to present a complex story without differing from the original comics story characteristics. It is by far the first movie to successfully marry the concepts of super-powers and time-travel in one story and executes the story greatly.
The movie also offer some epic moments, some never before seen in any movie. I personally liked the Quicksilvers resonating hands and of course Magneto's stadium drop. The dialog contains many catchy comments. I liked Magneto's words to Logan as seeing his claws "Imagine that with metal" that sounded just as vividly as a premonition of what is to come.
One thing that's not so satisfying is that the movie looks to be too limited by a duration length target that it doesn't spare any character development on any of the newly appearing mutants. I just hope that they get more spotlight in the next movie.
There is little to complain about the acting. A-list cast of stars is a great choice in doing this movie. The parts composition for each characters is great, able to showcase the senior talents in enough duration and at the same time still keeping the younger and newer talents to keep the lead roles. Hugh Jacman's Logan is an exception on this though, due to his character have a great relevance to the story's technical aspect.
The score department is good that is helps to build the scenes' mood well, keeping the focus at the characters and without being overbearing. The costumes and set department did great in reliving the 1970s era in the movie, though unfortunately, there's not much scenes that focus on things that are particularly special to that era.
From me, I'm glad to say that this is one of the most deserving 8 out of 10 scoring movie this year, and a recommendation is an absolute certain yes. I watched this in the streaming sites, and will definitely watch this again on DVD or any other higher quality medias.