Motion Picture Retrospect: Days of Future Past — The Franchise's Best

After the disappointing events of the third X-Men film, The Last Stand, the series was left in a very weird place. By the end of the film, most key characters were either dead, or were stripped out of their mutant powers. Almost leaving fans with just about Wolverine left standing, hence getting his 2 standalone films.

This was a drastic moment for the X-Men franchise and almost closed the doors to the possibilities of getting another sequel. In which, the sort of a prequel for the trilogy came to shape. First Class introduced us to the younger versions of Professor X and Magneto. How they came to be best buds and rivals at the same time. This of course gave hardcore fans the hope they needed for the franchise to survive.

Enter Days of Future Past, which works as a sequel to both the original trilogy and to First Class. Helmed by the original director, Bryan Singer, the new film hopes to establish a proper timeline for the series and eliminate the mistakes from the previous films.

Days of Future Past (DoFP) opens in the not so distant future wherein the invincible robot-like Sentinels has emerged to destroy the mutant species. The goal was a success leaving only a few of them alive with just a few fights left in them.

Professor X (Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (Ian McKellen) seemed to have a found a way to prevent the Sentinels from ever happening. They sent Wolverine's (Hugh Jackman) mind 50 years back of his younger self to stop Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) from murdering Dr. Boliver Trask (Peter Dinklage), the man responsible for the Sentinel Program. Doing so might prevent the Sentinel plan from ever happening as Trask's timely death will eventually lead to the government to move forward with the program to eliminate all existing mutants.

The setting of the film mostly takes place in the past, where Wolverine has to team up with the younger selves of Professor X (James McAvoy), who is currently powerless due to the events of First Class, and Magneto (Michael Fassbendel).

The complicated plot worked to its worth. Time travel is a tricky thing and the direction of how things and events took place in DoFP set things straight for the franchise.

The characters are well handled and delivered, as well as the development of the casts. That surprising Quicksilver (Evan Peters) short of a performance is something to praise for. Of all the cast though, I say that James McAvoy was phenomenal as the younger Charles Xavier. I always looked at the character as just the leader and mind of their team, nothing more, but in DoFP, we get to know him a bit personally just as it was in First Class.

Bryan Singer is so fit for X-Men! It's such a shame that he left after X-2 for other projects but now that he's back, I can say that he's on top of his game. With him on board, watching an X-Men films feels so comfortable and at ease.

Days of Future Past is pure entertainment that will leave us fans satisfied til the next installment. It's a definite watch, just be sure to see the first installments first as a lot of references and characters were borrowed from them.

With outstanding visual effects. great battle scenes, natural story and development, DoFP is a highly recommended watch!

My score: