A good effort, but I expected more from the original comic book movie franchise

Rating: 7/10 (2 January 2018)

'X-Men: Days of Future Past' is the fifth X-Men film (let's not include the Wolverine movies in this count) and does a good job of linking the original trilogy (2000-2006) to the 2011 prequel, 'X-Men: First Class'. The story starts off in the not-too-distant future (i.e. a decade or so after 'X-Men: The Last Stand'), where the Sentinels have almost hunted mutant-kind - and some of human-kind - to extinction. The plus side of this is that we get to see grown-up Professor X (Stewart), Magneto (McKellen), Wolverine (Jackman), Shadow Cat (Page), Storm (Berry), Iceman (Ashmore) & Colossus (Cudmore) - plus new additions Sunspot (Canto), Bishop (Sy), Warpath (Stewart) & Blink (Fan - who? Yeah, even I don't know who Blink is - some sort of weird mix between Nightcrawler & Psylocke) - and how they're living in the Terminator 4-esque future. The solution? Send Wolverine into the past to try to stop the Sentinels from being created. (I'm not sure how Shadow Cat's phasing ability inexplicably lets her transport people to the past...)
This is where - in 1973 - we're re-introduced to young Charles (McAvoy) & Eric (Fassbender). There's some good moments as they meet Wolverine for the "first" time, including drafting in Quicksilver (Peters). I'm glad they hinted that Magneto is his father, but it's a shame the same actor won't be playing him in 'Avengers: Age of Ultron'. We also meet Dr Trask (Dinklage, solid as ever), the creator of the Sentinel program and find out how Mystique (Lawrence) is out to assassinate him. I'm not sure why the films have so much focus on her, when she's not really that interesting a character in the comics and certainly not as pivotal as the films make her. Beast (Hoult) is good and I'm glad they got one of the original five X-Men in there with Xavier (no sighting of Angel at all!). It all gets slightly confusing, as the "future" X-Men fight off Sentinels to stop Wolverine from coming back to the future (had to be said!), while the "past" X-Men fight Magneto, Mystique & Sentinels separately!
There's some pretty massive set pieces at the end, with all the sets/costumes of the 70s looking great/realistic too (including Nixon!), but it all seemed just a little lacklustre to me. A few things don't quite add up and I had higher expectations from the future battles, as well as from the young Professor X/Magneto dynamic. It felt to me like it was building to something massive and the pay-off wasn't quite there. Sure, it's an enjoyable ending (I'm still looking forward to 'X-Men: Apocalypse') and does a good enough job of linking the films/characters, but I think Fox bit off more than they could chew. It was a little slow in parts and Wolverine certainly seemed like a passenger with not much to do. There were certainly some fun scenes and some exciting scenes, but not enough to elevate this to 'Avengers' status.