Time travel is an engaging addition to the X-Men franchise

Rating: 6/10 (25 February 2017)

There was a lot of love for DAYS OF FUTURE PAST on its release. It's a sequel to the X-MEN prequel FIRST CLASS that also ties it in to the older cast from the original X-MEN trilogy of the 2000s. As such there's an absolutely huge and sprawling cast of characters but director Bryan Singer just about manages to keep a grip on things so that it doesn't get too confusing.
What surprised me about the film is that the much-lauded plot is nothing more than virtual copy of that seen in the TERMINATOR films, although perhaps as the comic pre-dated THE TERMINATOR it's James Cameron who did the ripping off. Certainly the story, about a future annihilated by sentient robots and the survivors sending back a sole hero through time in order to avert the disaster, is all too familiar, but that doesn't mean it's not fun.
DAYS OF FUTURE PAST is fun, that's for certain. There's a huge cast of familiar and unfamiliar faces and a constant stream of effective CGI to keep viewers occupied, so this is never a boring experience. The future scenes are clichéd and amount to little more than an FX showcase of robots vs. mutants with lots of mutant death to boot. The main story, which takes place in 1973, is better, benefiting from Hugh Jackman's likable Wolverine and James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender doing their best with their engaging roles. Some of it is still too familiar, a lot of it is too over the top, and Peter Dinklage's villain is oddly irrelevant, but this is still a fun watch, albeit not one I'll be quick to revisit.