‘So I wake up in my younger body, and then what?’

In a desperate effort to save the future they now know, the X-Men send Wolverine back to the past to change history and prevent a single event from happening that results in an all out war for survival for both humans and mutants.

Over the past 15 years we have gotten three really good X-Men films out of five being filmed, those two brought down the franchise single handily and two of the good ones were from the mind of Bryan Singer. With Bryan Singer back at the helm of X-Men: Days of Future Past, there was resurgence in the air even though many were extremely skeptical because of the crap shows we got in The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Now that DOFP has been released, everyone is wiping their foreheads and screaming hell yeah! In one film, Bryan Singer, along with the biggest cast ever put on screen, was able to correct every wrong that those two films brought to the X-Men universe.

If you are going to come back to the franchise you started over 10 years ago, why not go with one of the biggest X-Men story arcs out there? Singer chose to go with the Days of Future Past story for a reason and a damn good one. He knew that from the base of that story, he could implant and replace things that would fit his universe and correct problems that other movies put into his universe (especially the ending!). A time traveling plot with over ten different main characters is well, just flat out hard to do. The fact that you are bringing the original cast and new cast together while jumping back and forth from past to the future, who wouldn’t think that wouldn’t work in a span of two hours? Well it was done beautifully. Not only does the story work, but it just makes flat-out sense.

In the comics, their are different characters being used for different parts of the movie, but that doesn’t work with the characters and roles the movie characters play in this universe. Many people were very upset that Kitty Pryde got replaced to go back in time by Wolverine. Why? That’s the biggest ‘make sense’ point of them all! Not only is Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine the face of these movies, he is the only one who can make the trip like the movie says, and Kitty wouldn’t even be alive at that time because she was introduce as a teenager in the original films, that wouldn’t work. And I’m sure after watching, everyone wishes they could take those comments back because Wolvie absolutely kicked ass at time traveling and convincing (surprising).

I don’t have to talk about actors/actresses and they did, just look at the list of people playing these parts. Every part was absolutely killed in very way. There were a few that stood out from the rest though. First off, James McAvoy as a struggling Xavier was just amazing to see. He was so convincing and you really started to feel and understand what this dude was going through at the time. Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique, I mean I don’t really need to say anything because of her history but wow. After seeing the ‘immature and young’ side of J.Law’s Mystique in First Class, it was so damn awesome to finally get the Mystique we all wanted! She kicked total ass, she was the rebel fighting for her cause, and she became a powerhouse for the woman superhero debate. Ellen Page as Kitty was awesome, she has really grown into this character over the big break and brought this true and cool form of Kitty to the screen. Bingbing Fan as Blink kicked total and complete ass. I don’t know much about her or most of those future X-Men, but Bryan Singer was able to introduce these new characters with no backstory so well. Blink was the definite standout, but seeing Colossus smash, Iceman (personal favorite) become THAT Iceman, Halle Berry just be Storm again; then the newcomers Bishop, Warpath, and Sunspot were pretty freaking cool, too. I hope we can see all the characters come back to the big screen later on down the road.

All in all, X-Men: Days of Future Past started off the summer movie season with one damn high bar. With so many ways it could have gone wrong, it didn’t. It was written, shot, and portrayed beautifully by everyone involved. The fight scenes were epic, the Sentinels were scary as hell (as they should be), the character development was off the charts, and the story was the perfect story to bring the X-Men franchise back to where it should be. Not only does it do that, but it can (hopefully) kick start an entire universe of X-Men movies that can rival their Marvel counter-parts, The Avengers. From the ending of the movie, the possibilities are endless now that every wrong over the past ten years has been erased in a blink of an eye. Two hours of sweet goodness from the movie, the epic final moments, and that one awesome post-credit scene; all I can do is be ecstatic for what X-Men: Days of Future Past has brought to the table, while at the same time clinch my fists in frustration because I have to wait two more years to see the next installment.

Rating: 9/10