Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects) directed the first two X-Men films back in the early 2000's. Then he handed over the reigns for the next few. Well, now he's back for the latest installment, and I think he's brought us the best of the bunch.
In the not-too-distant future, the world is not a safe place for mutants. One Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage, The Game of Thornes) has created giant mutant killing robots called Sentinels. They adapt to anything the mutants can throw at them, so the mutants are getting wiped out. It's so bad that it has brought Professor X (Patrick Stewart, X-Men) and Magneto (Ian McKellan, X-Men) back together again to fight side by side. They've come to find that Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page, X-Men: The Last Stand) has the ability to send people's minds back in time to a younger version of themselves. In doing so, they can then alter history. This brings them to the plan of sending someone way back to 1973 to stop the initial start-up of the Sentinal program. The only person they believe can withstand going back that far is Wolverine (Hugh Jackman, X-Men). They send him back and he must bring together a young Professor X (James McAvoy, X-Men: First Class) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender, X-Men: First Class) to fight a common cause.
So, you've got six movies already in this X-Men universe and the continuity is all over the place. What do you do? You bring in time travel, of course. That fixes everything, right? I was a little worried going in, but it ended up being a pretty fun ride none-the-less. It doesn't answer every question, and it even raised a couple more, but it did keep the time travel plot from getting to convoluted. Actually, I thought this movie was pretty contained, and that was refreshing. It didn't try to bring in a million new mutants like some of the other films. And they didn't try to jam in backstories for the ones that were brought in. It showed their powers and their purpose, and you just went with it. The story itself stayed pretty simple, future selves try to survive, past selves try to stop Trask. The pacing of the film was pretty good too. The only problem it may have had was that it was a little too long. It lagged a little in the middle act, but once you get over that little hump it picks up again through to the end of the film.
The acting is what you expect if you've seen any of the previous films. I think everyone has gotten pretty comfortable in their roles. The only problem I may have is actually Jennifer Lawrence of all people. I think she's a very good actress and love several of her movies, but she just doesn't work for me as the young Mystique. I just can't accept her as the stone-cold heartless killer that is Mystique. The newbies to the group held their own with the veterans as well, though. The stand out would have to be Quicksilver (Evan Peters, Kick-Ass). Aaron Taylor-Johnson (who co-starred with Peters in Kick-Ass, another superhero movie) needs to bring his A game when playing Quicksilver in the next Avengers movie. Ironically, Quicksilver was one of the highlights of the film while also being one of it's downfalls. It irritated me a little that he was mainly brought in as a convenient plot device. They could have utilized him a lot more. Here's to hoping that the next film brings him back.
The action, I feel, is some of the best we've seen in the franchise. One of the newcomers is a mutant named Blink (Bingbing Fan, Iron Man 3). Her powers make for some interesting battles visually in the future camp. Also, I have to bring up Quicksilver again. There is one really well done scene showing him using his super-speed to stop a fight. That scene alone almost made it worth the price of admission.
This was over-all a very welcome movie to the franchise. If you can put the unfixable continuity problems of the previous films aside, this movie works very well, even with the time travel. Minor lag in the middle and not enough Quicksilver were the most of it's problems. This was a very good summer blockbuster movie.
Rating: ********-- (8 out of 10)
Memorable Quote:
Logan: In the future, you and I will be good friends. You just don't know it yet.
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