Pass the Popcorn! review

Rating: 7/10 (25 May 2014)

X-Men: First Class was a successful movie and a most needed breath of fresh air in the franchise, but everyone knew that the X-Men franchise would be getting its real rebirth once Bryan Singer returned in the director's chair. It took over 10 years, but Bryan Singer finally returned with X-Men: Days of Future Past, which isn't the best X-men movie there is (X2 is still holding that title), but is damn near being so. X-Men: Days of Future Past is the first movie in the franchise that introduces a time traveling element in the plot, in an attempt to fix any continuity errors between X-Men: First Class and the rest of the franchise.
In the future, the world has been torn apart by a war between the mutants and Sentinels (giant robots made for killing mutants). In a desperate attempt, the last several surviving mutants send Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) back in time to stop Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) from killing the creator of the Sentinels, Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage), because that event apparently triggered the mutant/Sentinel war. But Wolverine can't find Mystique alone – he needs help from the younger versions of Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender). However, Charles Xavier is addicted to a medicine that helps him walk, but makes him lose his mutant powers, and Magneto is locked up in a super secret prison below the Pentagon.
The plot Days of Future Past isn't a rather simple one – the movie occasionally shifts focus from the past to the future and back again. The plot is mostly described through exposition, in form of dialogue between characters. The quality of these expository dialogues isn't always that good; especially in the beginning of the movie, when the characters explain to the audience the whole back story in 30 seconds flat. Nonetheless, after getting by that forced exposition, the movie suddenly starts being quite enjoyable, fun and interesting. Days of Future Past is possibly the funniest X-Men movie there is, filled with pleasant characters (Quicksilver, played by Evan Peters, stands out the most), great action sequences, and numerous amusing references to other movies in the franchise.
All the actors in the movie, with a few exceptions, are comfortable in their roles and are as good as ever (after all – the majority of them portrayed these characters at least once before). The exceptions to this rule are Ellen Page and Jennifer Lawrence. Ellen Page, in spite of having a very short screen time, is very unconvincing in her role; and Jennifer Lawrence is unusually wooden, which is a shame since she is the almost sole cast member who has won an Oscar. Thankfully, there is much going on in the movie, so it's not like their performances badly hurt Days of Future Past. On the contrary, the movie could actually be hurt by its third act which doesn't feel like a real finale. Instead, it is a very mild ending to a highly entertaining movie.
Rating: 7/10 Read more reviews at http://passpopcorn.com/