X-Men: Days of Future Past

The mid-credits of last summer's The Wolverine hinted at something big. Now we see that something big. It's X-Men: Days Of Future Past, which sees the return of director Bryan Singer and a few alumni from the first three films.

It's the near future which means it's not good? How not good? Robots. That kind of future. These robots are Sentinels, originally built to get rid of the perceived threat of mutantkind. But they also went after humans who'd one day have mutant kids. The Sentinels can adapt to any mutant, so any fight with them is a no-win scenario.

And how'd this get started? Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), formerly known as Raven, assassinated Sentinel creator Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage) in 1973. The Government caught her and studied her to give the Sentinels their adapting ability.

So in future-time, Shadowcat (Ellen Page) beams back Wolverine's (Hugh Jackman) consciousness to 1973. He has to get disillusioned Professor X (James MacAvoy) and mean Magneto (Michael Fassbender) back together to sway Mystique from her plan. It's not that easy.

There's much to Marvel at in the visual department. The Makeup department creates not just wild mutant looks, but 70's hairstyles as well. The Visual Effects team render a wide array of awesome mutant powers such as teleporting, elemental shapeshifting and super speed. That last power belongs to Quicksilver (Evan Peters), who puts it to good use to break out Magneto from his specially designed prison and then to stop a potentially lethal showdown (hilariously). He exits the movie after this, most likely because he'd resolve the plot right away.

The rest of the movie builds up the stakes. There's only three X-Men in 1973, and the "best there is" isn't yet. Meanwhile, scenes back in the future emphasize the deadline of their situation. It's one of those movies that you know things will go well but you can't help but tense up.

X-Men fans dissatisfied with the results of X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine may be happy to know that this movie kicks their events to the curb. As for me, it irks me in hindsight as to why not much thought went into those movies' creative process in the first place.

As for this one, it's simply the best of the X-Men films. It's the most fun I've had with this franchise in a long time. This one is worth remembering.

Stay all the way to the end and you'll meet the titular antagonist of the upcoming X-Men: Apocalypse.