X-Men: Days of Future Past (UK Rating: 12A)
It's pretty much a foregone conclusion that X-Men fans will love their favourite mutants' latest outing. X-Men: Days of Future Past brings together the characters from the X-Men trilogy and their younger versions from X-Me: First Class for the first time on the big screen. It's the ultimate mutant gathering - so far, anyway. With a few new faces bringing even more powers to the party, a real spectacle looks to be on the cards. As X-Men: Days of Future Past is released around the UK today, Freda Cooper shouts Lights, Camera Action! for another hot off the presses review.The older, present day mutants are under attack by a new breed of robots called Sentinels. They were developed after an event in the 70s, so the only way to avoid extinction is to go back in time and change history. Wolverine gets the job and, together with the younger Professor X and Magneto, sets about ensuring the survival of the mutant race.
So far, so good - but strip away all the super powers, robots and 3D, and what's left is surprisingly reminiscent of Back to the Future, except without the DeLorean. X-Men: Back to the Future, in effect. The disappointment comes from it not being as entertaining, though.
On the plus side, the first five minutes of the film are a fast-paced, noisy look at the size of the threat posed by the Sentinels. They are enormous, streamlined, surprisingly graceful given their size and, as far as the mutants are concerned, downright lethal. The climax of the film is genuinely spectacular, with the younger Magneto (Michael Fassbender in a very fetching helmet) transplanting an entire baseball stadium to encircle the White House, while simultaneously taking over the prototype fleet of Sentinels and turning them on their original masters.
Once he's arrived in the 70s and finds he has to release Magneto from prison, Wolverine has a crucial job for Quicksilver. Magneto's cell is buried deep in the bowels of the Pentagon - it was he that assassinated JFK - and Quicksilver is just the man to get him out. However, once he's done that, he's served his purpose and is gone. Apparently, in the comics it turns out that:
Additionally, if the newcomers have their limitations, most of the established characters are woefully underused. The film focuses on just six characters: the older and younger Magneto (Ian MacKellen and Fassbender), the Professor X equivalents (Patrick Stewart and James McAvoy), Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Mystique (a bright blue Jennifer Lawrence). It makes a refreshing change for one of the female mutants to have a crucial role in proceedings, but outside of those six, the rest of them have little or nothing to do. Halle Berry as Storm fights a few Sentinels and that's her lot. In the run up to the film's release, there was a lot of debate about Rogue - played by Anna Paquin - ending up on the cutting room floor. She didn't, but it's a case of blink and miss her, and Ellen Page as Kitty Pride spends the film with her hands on either side of Wolverine's head so that he can travel back in time. It's such a frustrating waste!