X-Men Days of Future Past: Story of Renewed Past

Keywords: action, sci-fi, super power, time travel
Audience: 13+ (under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian)
Violent content: some blood and severed limbs (mild visualization)
Sexual content: almost nudity (not only Mystique)

Warning: you may think this review contains mild spoilers (although I don't think it does)

I'm not a big fan of X-Men, but I like it enough that I'd been looking forward to Days of Future Past (DOFP). And I heard that it would be Jackman's last time playing Logan/Wolverine.

I rarely watch movie trailers (I hate them, in fact), so my expectation was build up upon my own assumption from random stuff I found on internet about DOFP. I thought that somehow the older team and the younger (past) team would meet and work together against a massive danger. It turned out that only one character does the time travel (doesn't need an expert to guess who, this poster is obvious).

Like most stories of time travel to the past, the goal of sending this character to 50 years ago is to fix one mistake done by a friend (yea, the other one in the poster). The time travel method is so simple that I wondered why don't they do it earlier? I expected some advanced technology combined with some mutant ability and difficult access and others.

Like some stories of time travel to the past, history has its way to resist efforts to change it. I didn't expect their first attempt to succeed, but oh c'mon why don't they just strangle the friend before the event. (because they can't find the friend? oookay)

The whole movie itself is quiet entertaining (my favorite scene is Quicksilver's display of his power), but there's no good reason to watch it if you didn't enjoy First Class. If you've been following X-Men stories, you'll care about the characters and you'd love to see what Charles (Prof Xavier), Erik (Magneto), and Raven (Mystique) have become after the final event in First Class. Their arguments about whose way is better to save mutants from global extermination is believable.

There, I said it, the main reason I felt unsatisfied while waiting the credit title scene (a very short one). This "let's make humans understand that mutants are friends" is overused in X-Men stories. Even X-Men 3 offers a slightly more interesting light with "whether you are a mutant or human, you don't have to change it" (I refer to the "mutant cure", for good measure). However, the way DOFP focuses on the overused theme makes its plot clear and not confusing.

I do want to talk about the ending, but I can't do that without giving out spoilers. At least I dare to say that the ending makes X-Men fans should watch this movie. You MUST know what happen to them. If you're not a fan of these mutants, you can skip this movie, there's nothing to lose.