X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST REVIEW

*MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS*

It's been almost two decades since director Bryan Singer brought the popular comic books to the big screen in X-Men. It proved to be popular with fans and has become one of the most successful superhero franchises in its own right. It now has a total of six films, including a prequel and an origins story that focused on one of the main mutants, Wolverine.
I would say that Days Of Future Past is more science-fiction than simply a comic book action film. The film is set in 2023 where Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), Eric 'Magneto' Lehnsherr (Ian McKellen) and the X-Men are facing annihilation from the Sentinels which are robots that have only one purpose: to find and kill all mutants. Unfortunately, the X-Men are struggling to defeat the Sentinels and their only hope is for Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) to send one of the mutants' consciousness to 1973 where the Sentinels were first created. James 'Wolverine' Logan (Hugh Jackman) is the only one who can withstand the journey. This may be Wolverine's biggest challenge yet, not to stop Sentinels creator, Boliver Trask (Peter Dinklage), but to reunite the 1973 versions of Charles (now played by James McAvoy) and Eric (Michael Fassbender) as they're the only ones who can stop Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) from killing Trask. However, both Charles and Eric have different ways of doing this task. The kind-hearted Charles wants to try and convince her not to kill whereas Eric tries to kill Mystique. Meanwhile, for Wolverine, the situation becomes more and more desperate.
Days Of Future Past is, in my opinion, the best X-Men movie in the series. It's full of action and all of the characters that made the franchise successful return. This includes: Jackman's Wolverine. He is as tough and brave as ever; Charles Xavier, who is portrayed both by Stewart in the future and McAvoy in the past. Both actors give strong performances to Xavier. There's also an interesting scene where the past version of Xavier interacts with the older version of himself. McKellen isn't in Days Of Future Past that much, we see more of Fassbender's Magneto, who is still focused on killing those who have tried to kill him. We meet new mutants including Quicksilver (Evan Peters) who helps break out Magneto from the Pentagon. Lawrence is brilliant as Mystique, I'm happy she has a bigger part here than in First Class.
This film has a great opening, with the X-Men using their powers to try and stop the Sentinels. There is tension throughout the film as we never know if Wolverine is going to be able to succeed in changing the past and preventing the Sentinels from being created. The editing is really good too as it shows how the past can affect the future.
X-Men: Days Of Future Past is not only a brilliant superhero film but it's also one of the best films of 2014.

8/10