Back to basics for story with lots of brain and a little brawn that does a difficult juggling act well.

Rating: 8/10 (22 May 2014)

There were a lot of expectations resting on this movie's shoulders. A return from original director Bryan Singer, a resurrection of the original trilogy cast and a union of original trilogy and "First Class". Plus it features the beloved 'Sentinels' storyline and deals with time travel (always tricky) and the often used 'go back to the past to change the future' line, as well as heavy issues about war and peace and the power of choice over destiny etc. However, happily enough, this difficult and tricky balancing act has been pulled off with aplomb.
The 'ravaged Earth' future (which is at odds with original trilogy but anyway..) is shamelessly derivative of 'The Terminator' and 'The Matrix' series, and they do not even try to hide it. Not so important given that it is just a bookend for the main story. Professor X and Magneto are now allies, facing an army of unstoppable anti-mutant robots called Sentinels which are like the offspring of the T1000 and Thor's Destroyer. Reduced to just a handful, it is decided to send Wolverine back to 1973 because he is the only one who can make the journey and also never ages (and because he is the main star of the series) His mission is to unite young Charles, a drug addicted wash out who is afraid of his mental powers, and young Lehnsherr, who is imprisoned beneath the Pentagon suspected of having assassinated Kennedy (?) Breaking him out with the aid of young Hank McCoy/Beast and Quicksilver, who can move at lightning speed, they have to stop Mystique, who is now a breakaway radical, from assassinating diminutive genius Bolivar Trask, inventor of the Sentinels, an act which will at once radicalise the human governments and provide Trask's team – headed by young Colonel Stryker – with her unique DNA that helps them create the T1000 like future Sentinels! After interrupting the first attempt at the Paris peace talks to end the Vietnam War (where Trask is trying to sell his Sentinels to the Reds) they then track her down to Washington where President Nixon is unveiling the first generation robots. However Magneto is following his own radical agenda and crashes the party by dropping a Stadium around the White House and hijacking the robots. With the future on a literal knife edge it will be a series of individual personal choices that decides everything.
There is a predictable but cute coda in a totally new future that sees a lot of dead characters alive again (guess who in particular?) and the events of the previous 5 contemporary timeline movies seemingly rubbed out to start anew.
The film returns to big ideas and concepts, something that defined the original trilogy but largely disappeared from subsequent entries. In many ways it evokes "Watchman", right down to Nixon and a cold war milieu (here Vietnam) demonstrating human aggression and self destructiveness which a well meaning but misguided scientist hopes to end by uniting mankind against a common enemy (here mutants) It also returns to the core concept of X-Men, do you meet aggression and hostility with more aggression and hostility or do you reach out and change hearts and minds? Singer shows pros and cons of both sides but of course ends on a victory for peace and mutual tolerance. It is far more thought provoking and free thinking than the simplistic black and white agitprop of the overpraised "Captain America the Winter Soldier". The old free will/destiny dichotomy gets a fair airing as well with a message that even the smallest of gestures and choices can change not just our own lives but those of countless others. It is no coincidence that a classic Star Trek episode is playing in the background of a key moment!
The film is not over abundant in action but then no previous X-Men ever was either. The "Terminator" future scenes are pretty much all in the trailer and seem done with little real care. There are some interesting set pieces in the 70's section, notably Quicksilver's bullet time rescue and a fight around the Paris peace talks that's caught on 8mm 'found footage'. The biggest battle comes at the end with Magneto's stadium lift and White House destruction, even if the resolution is ultimately intellectual rather than pyrotechnic.
Acting wise, Jackman is again the star playing a more chilled out Wolverine this time in his 6th turn! Stewart and Mckellen are cameos more than anything else , leaving the real screen time to Mcavoy and Fassbender, who here play intermediate versions of the characters. McAvoy has most to do as a self doubting pathetic druggy wreck that gets a little tiresome quickly. Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique gets another expanded role, driving the story along, but her performance is laconic and lacks passion. Nicholas Hoult is a nerdy Beast who can change at will while Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage plays unintended villain Trask well and never loads his character or reaches for camp. Other brief returnees from the original trilogy include Ellen Page, Aaron Stanford, Shawn Ashmore and Halle Berry, though like the big two they're just there for recognition value and do little.
Perhaps a little action-light for some fans and a seeming step back from the reboot project, this film is nonetheless an engrossing and unusual left turn for the series that leaves us wanting to know more as the credits roll.