X-Men: Days of Future Past

Movie Name: X-Men: Days of Future Past
Year of Release: 2014

Director: Bryan Singer

Stars: Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Halle Berry, Elle Page, Nicholas Hoult, Peter Dinklage, Shawn Ashmore, Josh Helman, Daniel Cudmore, Evan Peters, Michael Lerner, Famke Janssen, James Marsden, Morgan Lily

Genre: Action, Sci-Fi, Adventure

Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 7

Synopsis:

The "X-Men" saga is back, this time back under the reigns of the director who originally brought it to life, and who has effectively directed the best film of the series thus far, "X-Men 2". The film is a sequel to the Matthew Vaughn directed "X-Men: First Class", but merges the cast and crew from the original trilogy with their younger counterparts. The film introduces us to the mutant team in the future, a bleak time where super powered gigantic robots, known as the Sentinels have managed to kill most of the mutant population and part of the human population as well. The last remaining mutants, have devised a plan, where they send one of them back in time, in order to successfully alter the course of history, specifically Mystique's decision to kill the creator/inventor of the Sentinel program, scientist Bolivar Trask. Wolverine is sent back to the 70s, and his task lies in getting Professor Xavier and Magneto working in tandem, and avoid all their demise.
"X-Men: Days of Future Past" is by far one of the best adaptations of the legendary comic book team to screen. Following the mediocre "X-Men: The Last Stand", and both "Wolverine" standalone films, this film successfully manages to bring a fresh life to a series that was becoming bogged in mediocrity and poorly written story lines. Bryan Singer successfully bridges the intertwined stories, with both teams and players - there's a level of comfort and fluidness in the storytelling that is both refreshing and very entertaining. The film hops around the globe, and the story focuses on the team per se, and on different key characters, as opposed to the character Wolverine being the sole focus. The actors are uniformly good, in particular the trio of James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence and Michael Fassbender. The sophistication of the special effects is impressive, as is the cinematography from Newton Thomas Sigel. The film does falter in certain aspects of the future storyline, where some characters are barely there and a poor choice of production design, but the overall endeavor, is highly entertaining and rewarding. Worth watching!