Director Bryan Singer infuses some actual humour up in this piece, and even though the whole thing is a sprawling, stupid mess (JFK?), it's entertaining, which is the best you can hope for in a series on track to outpace Nightmare on Elm Street.
Much of this takes place in the early 1970s, which gives the filmmakers an excuse to haul out lots of vintage kitsch and make some rather tasteless references to the Vietnam war.
Yes, it's a Marvel cartoon, but don't underestimate this very entertaining summer blockbuster's ability to shift our collective consciousness. It can tinker with your dogma.
The plot is about a fearful society whose expansion of its security apparatus has unintended consequences, but Singer doesn't even touch the story's topical resonances... There's also no real moral quandary to be grappled with.
Their position in the league has slipped since Iron Man and co. But this one shows the X-Men still play a good mental game, one more suited for grown-ups who like their superpowered characters rubbing up against history and the real world.
I would be remiss not to note that tucked away amid all the existential melodrama is perhaps the most hilarious set piece ever to grace a superhero film.
Quicksilver ... is the coolest of this picture's new guys, zipping around so fast ... that he can taste soup, rearrange guards' limbs, and nudge bullets off their trajectories all in the time it takes to blink.
It's an absolutely lavish bouquet to series fans, who get to see the entire X-saga summarized and effectively reconceived through Wolverine's desperate and time-addled perceptions.
It is especially impressive that Days of Future Past is a success; a film this gooey and complex, with such business-minded scope, should not feel like a real movie at all.
