Critics reviews

The news was both good and bad. Singer's comfort with immersive digital effects while keeping track of the human beings walled inside them is exceptionally strong... But the playfulness has gone, drained away by modern obligations for night-time storm-clouded dystopias that are duller than digital dirt.

The most notable and pioneering feature of "Days of Future Past" is that it manages to be part of an existing franchise, to tack on another 131 minutes to a successful film series, while adding exactly nothing to that film series; at the end of "Days of Future Past," we are at once at the conclusion of that film, but also the start of the entire series...

[Days of Future Past is] the first to get a four-star rating from us hard-to-please grouches at the Sunday Mail, but the rating isn't because it departs from formula (it doesn't), more because it ties everything together – the X-People's struggle for acceptance in human society, the Xavier-Magneto rivalry, the retro trappings and breezier tone of stylish prequel X-Men: First Class – and does so in a smooth, coherent way. Fans will be thrilled. Neutrals (like me) should, at least, be entertained.

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. Bryan Singer, who directed the first two X-Men movies, is back behind the camera, though this looks virtually identical to the previous installment, X-Men: First Class...

Like Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Godzilla, Days of Future Pasttries to use real-world history and iconography to prop up its storyline, and while its allusions aren't particularly deep, the attempts at contextualizing its fantastical action at least evince a little bit of ambition.

Epic in scale and ruthless in execution, Bryan Singer's superhero slam-down is a slick, exhilarating entertainment that successfully fuses both the original and First Class universes for the very first time. And if it doesn't quite match the watertight narrative perfection of X2, then so what? There are enough set-pieces — some of them dazzling — to warrant continued attention.

Director Bryan Singer's confident direction mostly compensates for familiar comic book movie problems like bald expository dialogue and forgettable action scenes. The film has such momentum that you rarely have time to realize that it lacks a great sense of urgency. So, while it is mostly rote and undemanding, "Days of Future Past" is also basically good enough.

For better or worse, X-Men: Days Of Future Past is the first Marvel movie to truly embrace comics-style storytelling. Context-less and origin-story-free, it presumes that its audience is familiar with all relevant character traits, continuities, and fantastic elements. It returns the genre to its geek roots; depending on the viewer, it has the potential to be the most narratively satisfying and fluid entry in the X-Men film series, or the most alienating.

What's most welcome about Days of Future Past — and what director Bryan Singer, who directed the first two excellent X-Men movies, clearly brings to this franchise — is an emotional sincerity that helps sell the wild, sensationalistic story... This is a superhero world where things like pain, shame, compassion and betrayal are refreshingly treated as real things.

Ultimately, the time-traveling conceit feels like a shameless ploy to further expand the franchise's narrative universe, while also indulging a more recent nostalgia for Singer's original X-Men films and the beloved cast that brought them to life. Here, the entire cast is hemmed in by the dialogue, which vacillates between shrill, oft-reiterated platitudes about fate and long stretches of dull backstory.