Defying fear and expectation, X-Men: Days of Future Past is not only one of the best super hero movies ever made but also exemplifies why the X-Men  mean so much to so many people.

After Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) kills Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage) to keep him from moving forward with his mutant hunting Sentinel program, the government accelerates the program and using Mystique’s shape shifting ability creates an advanced Sentinel capable of wiping mutants out forever. By 2023 the world is in ruins and mutants have been hunted to the brink of extinction. Using her phasing abilities to time-shift, Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) sends Wolverine’s (Hugh Jackman) consciousness back in time to 1973 to stop Mystique from the assassination. In order to do this, Wolverine must reunite Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) with Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender) to help stop Mystique. And then things get pretty complicated.

Loosely based on the 1980’s story arc from Chris Claremont and John Byrne, Days of Future Past melds the two X-men film franchises together and features the cast of both, one in the future and one in the past. It is complex and detailed with a ton of moving parts but with all the stuff that goes on, director Bryan Singer and screenwriter Simon Kinberg never forget what it is at the core that makes the X-Men special in the first place.

The emotional core of the movie plays not only on each character’s history and emotional past but also ties that into how a returning audience will feel about these characters. If you aren’t invested in the series, there is still plenty to offer and everything you need for emotional weight and resonance is built in but if you have been a fan of the series and care about the characters then the impact is even greater.

For me, as a long time fan of the comics going way back to 5th grade or so, the X-Men have always had something special that I haven’t gotten from other team books. Without insulting the Justice League or the Avengers, the X-Men have always represented a deeper connection because they are bound together out of need and necessity and are made family by the fact that they need one another to survive. No one hates Captain America because he was born a certain way and Superman doesn’t really have to worry that at some point bigots will chase him with torches through the streets (except Lex Luthor I guess). With the X-Men, they have powers but they are still vulnerable. There is still a very real fear that if they don’t hide who they are and protect themselves then they will be wiped out.

This is a very real and accessible feeling that most people can relate to as just about everyone has something that makes them feel separate at some point. The X-Men are a personification of the feeling of fear for being different but they also embody the strength to be who you are and to be proud of that. All of the X-Men movies have dealt with this in one form or another but Days of Future Past highlights that struggle in stark relief and shows how delicate the balance is between asserting yourself and inciting violence against you.

It is an interesting starting off point when you have your heroes set out to save the life of someone who hates them and wants to eradicate them in some kind of ersatz version ‘Would you kill Hitler if you could go back in time.’ This raises moral and ethical questions and adds even greater weight and higher stakes to the proceedings. That is allows each of its characters the opportunity to state their case makes this even stronger and more prickly. There is  a lot going on here to be considered and take in and that flies in the face of more conventional super hero movies or super hero teams who fight unambiguous evil without having to question whether or not it is the right thing to do. This provides a deeper sense of urgency and importance to what is going on and shows why the X-Men are a big deal.

Now, the above is not to say that this movie is a huge downer or that it is serious and sad for its entire run time. The stakes are very high and remain so, but the film is also unbearably cool from an action standpoint and it is enormously funny as well. These aspects are vital to making this film work because if it were all dark soliloquies on the nature of man and the evil they do it would just be too much. So what we get is a masterful blend of drama, action and humor that is not only typical of the source material but also makes it a perfect piece of entertainment that can both excite and nourish all at the same time. And Quicksilver (Evan Peters) was badass as all hell.

Going into this movie I really worried what we were going to get because it was so big and some of the early images coming out looked pretty silly. Quicksilver, in particular, looked really bad too me and I was dreading the characterization and lamenting how they could screw this up when it looks like the Avengers: Age of Ultron was going to get it so right. I have to say, I was 100% wrong on this. Quicksilver in this movie was perfect for the character he was and the age at which we find him. The effects used with him were flawless and Peters was a perfect choice for the character. And just like that the onus is now on the Avengers to match this version.

The performances across the board were great and even reasonably minor roles were performed very well as was the case with Shawn Ashmore as Iceman. He doesn’t have a ton of screen time but he does a lot with it. Seeing Patrick Stewart back as Charles Xavier and Ian McKellan as Magneto from the future was awesome as I have always loved the both of them in these roles. Nicholas Hoult turns in a another great performance as Hank McCoy as he struggles with his identity and his powers but still trying to do the right thing. Jennifer Lawrence builds on the great work she did in the first film and continues to give Mystique pathos and soul. Peter Dinklage is perfect as Trask and manages to be a hate monger without seeming terribly hateful which is very important for the reasoned argument he is trying to make to otherwise reasonable people.

At this point Hugh Jackman is pretty much automatic as Wolverine, not that he is on auto-pilot but just that he is so locked in to the character that he is expected to be as note perfect as he is. Jackman anchors the movie with his performance and is the perfect go between for the two casts. Whenever he retires, I sort of hope Wolverine retires with him because I have a very hard time imagining anyone else doing it.

The biggest standouts in the film, however, are Fassbender and McAvoy. Just like in the last film the two bring astounding dramatic weight to the material and ground the characters in a way that is absolutely necessary for the film. Fassbender has a bit less to do this time around but he improves every scene he is in. James McAvoy, however, has a lot to do and he does it so well that it is almost not fair to anyone else. This is tour de force from McAvoy without which none of this would work at all. I really cannot say enough about how powerful his performance is here and how vital he his to the success of the film as a whole.

Conclusion [10 out of 10]

I would change nothing about this movie (except for maybe add a bit more Havok) and I never thought I would see anything like this in movies. It is a masterwork in super hero film making that significantly raises the bar on what audiences should expect. It is fun, emotional, exciting, sad, suspenseful, moving and bad ass. IE everything an X-Men movie should be.