The X-Men movie franchise is still alive, and better than ever

Rating: 10/10 (5 June 2014)

It's very rare that you get to see a film franchise make it to its seventh installment and still have the ability to impress fans and critics alike. But never before has a film franchise made it to its seventh installment and actually topped all of its previous efforts.
However, when I say seventh installment, I suppose I should include an asterisk. First this includes the two Wolverine films, the second of which didn't even have X-Men in the title. And secondly, The X-Men movie series, like the comics, is a bit of a convoluted mess, and it's sometimes difficult to figure which films are part of the "official canon" and which aren't. The comics have the excuse of being around for over 50 years with dozens of spin-offs and thousands of comics/graphic novels between them. That's a lot of story continuity, so it's understandable that things will become convoluted after awhile.
The movies don't have that excuse, and the cracks in continuity began to show as early as the fourth film, X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Indeed, some would argue that the previous film, X-Men: The Last Stand, was the beginning of the end. Those two films, though entertaining, were definitely a dark period for the X-Men films, and many of us were beginning to think the franchise would end with the disappointing fourth installment.
But if Fox failed to make another X-Men movie in a timely manner, they would lose the rights to the franchise and Marvel Studios would take the reigns. For awhile I was hoping this would happen. X-Men would then be able to exist in the same universe as the Avengers, a team that has close ties with X-Men in the comics, and has shared more than a few members (one of whom, Quicksilver, actually does appear in both this X-Men movie and the upcoming Avengers film).
But then fox released X-Men: First Class. At first I thought it was a reboot since it seemed to ignore most of the continuity of the last four films. But no, it turns out it was a prequel, and a fantastic one at that. It's very rare that prequels turn out to be better than the originals they are meant to precede, but First Class managed to do this, and it even managed to do it without the star character, Wolverine, who only made a brief cameo appearance.
It seemed that the writers had learned that the key to a good X- Men movie wasn't Wolverine, it wasn't the action or even the mutant powers. It's the deeper competing philosophies that X-Men puts forward as exhibited by the two most important characters: Professor X and Magneto. The originals had these two amazing characters portrayed by Shakespearean stage play veterans Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan. But it was fascinating seeing their younger selves as portrayed by James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender. Both pairs nailed their respective parts to perfection.
This film, using one of my favorite science fiction plot devices: time travel, manages to bring both pairs together in the same film to brilliant effect. It's wonderful seeing the older and wiser Prof X and Magneto contrasted with their younger, more passionate selves. Peter Dinklage, playing the fanatical Bolivar Trask, manages to paint a sympathetic picture of the villain. If one thing X-Men does right, it's in its portrayals of villains. Very few of them are actually "comic book evil". They're just people, usually with deep convictions, who believe they are doing the right thing. The deeper themes of fanaticism, the horrors of war and genocide and how the road to hell is paved with good intentions is brilliantly adapted from the source material.
I remember reading the "Days of Future Passed" comic book double issue as a teenager and it had a deep impression on me. Many people have accused this film of ripping off The Terminator, but what they probably don't realize is that the original story-line was written in 1981 by Chris Claremont. If anything, The Terminator ripped off Days of Future Passed.
That being said, aside from the premise, this film is quite different from the original 1981 comic book story arc. But those changes were necessary since the movie franchise exists in a very different universe than the comic book franchise. Still, major themes and the heart of the story is preserved, and that's really all that matters.
So did this movie "fix" the plot-holes and continuity issues of the previous six installments? Well, it's hard to say. Once you introduce multiple time-lines into the equation, I guess any plot-hole or inconsistency can be explained away simply by saying "this movie exists on a different time-line where things happened differently". It doesn't exactly explain why Professor X is suddenly alive again at the beginning of this film, but I guess it doesn't require an explanation either. It's not perfect, but I try not to let it bother me. At the end of the day the film stands on its own as an excellent bit of cinema. If you're looking for plot-holes, you're going to find them. But fortunately, the movie is so good that you forget to look for them.