Being a fan of the comic books and X Men saga (except X Men 3 which was awful, Brett Ratner ‘s fault), I expected a lot from this film especially since it was the come-back of Bryan Singer as director. The trailer was not great and did not really reassured me but the truth is that the plot is quite complicated at first and so, difficult to sell. As its title suggests, the film deals with time traveling, the challenges of temporality, fate and the possibility of changing so you see constant back and forth through the movie.
Besides the great success of making all easily understandable to the audience (because it usually gives you a major headache), the show is spectacular; the visual is great and you acknowledge the huge movie budget ($200 million against $160 million for “Godzilla”) was used wisely. 3D is also well done as the director’s style: nothing is overdone, everything is efficient. Spectacular but smart. Singer’s directing style also appears through the narrative process where the voiceover is again used to provide depth to the story and raise philosophical issues (like in X Men 2 for instance) on determinism, fatalism, our morality responding to our survival instinct. In short, a really interesting and entertaining film. The moments of tension are punctuated by very funny scenes (another particularity of the X- Men films by Singer) especially the scenes with the Quicksilver character (Evan Peters).
In addition, the cast is exceptional. Beyond the small role of Omar Sy (we are happy that a French actor is part of this international team), the film provides an opportunity for the director to reunite the cast from the first and latest movies. Thus you enjoy watching Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy and Hugh Jackman among others. These four last ones were not famous at the time of their first appearance in the saga and are now recognized by the profession which proves the intelligence of Singer in terms of casting: focusing on talent rather than A-list figures (unlike «Avengers” actors). Ironically, the film is now boosted by the popularity of these actors. You especially notice the performance of James McAvoy who is definitely always great.
Top of that, the film reunites almost all the characters of the movies and therefore is a true gesture dedicated for the fans. With Singer in charge, you see that it is the expert of X -Men directing and he wanted to satisfy the fans.
He even afforded the luxury of correcting errors that might have occurred in the saga and particularly in X -Men 3, the only movie Bryan Singer was not involved in neither as a director nor as a producer.
In short, it’s a total blast!
After the credits, there is a very enigmatic teaser. Stay until the end and do not hesitate to tell us if you understand what it is about!
This film is so successfully great that you wonder how this team would be able to do better on the next episode! Fan or not of X -Men, if you have a superhero movie to see, forget the Avengers soldiers and go watch this one!
