575. X-Men: Days Of Future Past (2014)

Starring: Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender

Director: Bryan Singer

Running Time: 131 mins

X-Men: Days Of Future Past is an American film that follows the events after an army of mutant-destroying robots, Sentinels, bring Earth to near annihilation, and the X-Men must send Wolverine back into the past to bring the group together and prevent this apocalypse from every happening.

As I said in my First Class review, I’m not an X-Men expert, I’m not well-versed in my understanding of the entire series,so I, again, approached this film from the perspective of a newcomer to the franchise.

Having said that, for a film that pulls together hundreds of elements from a series that I don’t know much about, I really enjoyed this. It’s got a very entertaining and imaginative story, filled with unpredictability and excitement, as well as a structure that doesn’t become too convoluted and deep, thereby avoiding excluding any non die-hard X-Men fans.

The main thing I loved about this film was how it managed to make the time-travel gimmick work. It’s based loosely on a comic from the original X-Men, so it’s not a story that’s been plucked out of thin air, and is both clever, however very well-flowing and easy to understand.

It follows the story of both the events of 1973, where Wolverine is trying to save the world from preventing the apocalypse, as well as the story in the post-apocalyptic era, where the X-Men are on the brink of destruction, and those two story lines could be potentially confusing and overblown, however the genius of this film is that it doesn’t become overly complicated and incomprehensible.

Instead, there’s a very smooth nature to the film. There aren’t forced and unexpected jumps between time periods, rather two parallel stories that fit very well together, and that, while remaining incredibly intelligent, makes it very easy-watching and enjoyable.

Also, the way that the story is set up allows for total unpredictability and excitement throughout, as, from the off, it’s shown that the entire plot and future of the future past is down to one single event, meaning that every second counts in this film, making it thrilling to watch.

However, the only thing that I think this may lack is a greater sense of fun. Yes, amidst an apocalyptic scenario, I think that a darker atmosphere is appropriate, but it seems as if this does occasionally go a little too far with the doom and gloom, and there’s never a big fun superhero feel to it, but it doesn’t hugely impact the fact that this film is properly exciting and entertaining, so that’s why it gets a 7.5.