"...through the darkness of futures past..."

I think of all the superhero movies I've seen the one I've had highest hopes for would be the latest X-Men film, Days of Future Past. Largely because the issues of the comic on which it's based were two of the greatest issues of superhero comics ever. Therefore, it's had a load of high hopes for it to live up to.

Clearly there would need to be changes between comic and film, and indeed there are; the most notable being that in the comics it's Kitty who is sent back in time, whereas here it's Wolverine. 

The basic premise remains the same, though, in that we start in a dystopic future where mutants are hunted by the ruthless Sentinels, who are determined to wipe out all mutants. They manage to work out a way to send the consciousness of one of them back in time in order to change the past and stop the future happening. This moment was when Mystique assassinated a key individual; in the comics it's Senator Kelly, whereas here it's Bolivar Trask, the man who initiated the Sentinels project. Talking of whom; Dinklage is just brilliant here. Just wish he was in it a bit more...

The movie takes the initial premise and fleshes it out, giving it a little more depth than the comics (after all 48 pages of comic won't last across a two hour film), as well as more spectacle. There's some great set pieces here to showcase the various mutant powers. Just wonderful. Magneto in full force... whoah. 

It's also an excuse to do a film, properly, with both the original, Patrick Stewart led cast and the newer First Class, James McAvoy led cast (we obviously had Wolverine in the First Class film; but just a cameo...). And, whilst casts are by necessity kept apart by fifty years of time travel, it works really well. It's great to see Stewart and McKellan light up the screen again, for what's likely to be their last time, I would think, as well as Halle Berry's Storm, Anna Paquin's Rogue (though if you blink in the wrong place, you'll miss her), as well as... well, wait and see. 

So, it's a movie that has a lot to live up to, and it manages it. It's certainly the best X-Men film so far, and is one of my very favourite superhero films. It does help that in no way at all is it an origin story; just you take a look back at superhero films, and you'll see that something like 90% are either origin stories for the hero, or the villain. 

In fact, there's really only two things that I really disliked about the film;

1 - with it being Wolverine who goes back in time, it means we're denied the iconic cover of X-Men #142 in the film. Ah... imagine how great that would have been...

2 - Wolverine's bone claws. I maintain that in the entire history of Marvel comics, the most idiotic decision ever made was when they said "hey, wouldn't it be great if it turned out Wolverine was born with bone claws?" No. It wouldn't. It's a shit idea. 

Anyhow, it was a corker of a film.

Now, bring on the apocalypse... :)