Check out the X-Men: Days of Future Past Final Trailer if you haven’t done so already!

The Dork Knight’s X-Men Days of Future Past Review

During the climax of X2: X-Men United (my favorite from the original trilogy), Magneto says to Professor X as he sits inside Cerebro helpless,

“How does it look from there Charles? Still fighting the good fight? From here it doesn’t look like they’re playing by your rules. Maybe it’s time to play by theirs.”

This sentiment is echoed in the past (or an echo from the past) by Michael Fassbender’s Magneto in X-Men: First Class when he explains his case for retaliating against the humans after the Americans and the Russians thanked them for ending the Cuban Missile Crisis by trying to kill them:

“The humans have played their hand. Now we get ready to play ours. Who’s with me?”

However, the dystopian future depicted in X-Men: Days of Future Past is one that Magneto actually helped to cause because he and his Brotherhood of Mutants (mainly Mystique) played by “their” rules. As the older Magneto (played by Sir Ian McKellen) admits, he was foolish in his youth to play by the worst of humanity’s rules. He had always feared that mutants would be eradicated if the humans had their way, but Professor X refused to believe it possible because of his hope; something the young Charles Xavier (played by James McAvoy) lost between the events of X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Days of Future Past and now it’s up to Wolverine (played by Hugh Jackman), with the help of Kitty Pride (played by Ellen Page), to restore Xavier’s hope so the future can be saved.

It’s not very clear to me if this is supposed to be an alternate reality from the original trilogy (think the JJ Abrams Star Trek) or an attempt to fix all of the continuity problems from the previous movies in the same reality (think Back to the Future), but by the end of the flick it almost doesn’t matter. The problem with time travel movies is they can get confusing for the audience, especially when dealing with a franchise that has so many continuity issues, but this film is so good and the story is told so well that not only was I not confused, but I’d be willing to buy either theory. Without spoiling anything, by the time you get to the end of X-Men: Days of Future Past every X-Men movie prior, save X-Men: First Class, almost doesn’t matter. What you’re left with is the equivalent of a reset button on the original cast and a solid sendoff point for the First Class cast.

I highly recommend this movie. It is easily the best movie in the franchise (I’ve already seen it three times). It was very entertaining and even though it runs over 2 hours and ten minutes long, it does not feel like it. I give it a five out of five. Oh, and be sure to stay until the very end of the credits for a glimpse at what’s ahead in the X-Men Movie Universe.