I've never been a big fan of X-Men comics. Sure, I watched a handful of episodes of the cartoon in the 90's, but I liked the Spider-Man and Batman cartoons better. I've read a couple X-Men books, like Joss Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men or Grant Morrison's run on New X-Men but I've never been able to get into the team in general. It's mostly because the continuity of those books, even in superhero comic book terms, is completely and irrevocably screwed to the point that I would be hopeless to unravel it at this point.
Which is kind of ironic given the state of continuity in the X-Men films. The quality of the individual movies within the franchise aside, the timeline is a mess in both minor and major ways. As a result, X-Men: Days of Future Past has to serve as a sequel to X-Men: First Class, a fond farewell to (most of) the original cast of the first trilogy of movies, and a big fat bandaid for the timeline of this franchise.
It is, surprisingly, pretty successful on all counts. There are a couple of times where the story chugs a bit under those burdens, but it remains an entertaining and well made modern X-Men movie. There is a little weirdness, Wolverine has metal claws in the future in spite of loosing them in The Wolverine. Kitty Pride can suddenly send people's minds back in time. Professor X being alive, looking the same, and being in a future wheelchair is a bit of a stretch too, even with the end credits scene after X-Men: The Last Stand.
Thankfully, the movie doesn't really bother with trying too hard to make everything make sense. The story just forges ahead, secure in the knowledge that everything will be sorted out just fine in the end, which it is. The movie's been out for a bit, so I'm not too worried about this being a spoiler, but the time travel conceit is used how a lot of people thought it would be. They reboot the X-Men movie timeline in a way that still acknowledges the original movies, with X-Men: First Class being the beginning of the new timeline.
It's cool as a long time fan of the franchise to see the old and new versions of some of these characters all in the same movie. It's fun to see the movie embrace the crazy kind of continuity that is present in comic books. The rebooted nature of the story also means that fresh life has been breathed into these characters in a way that makes the future of these movies with James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, and Jennifer Lawrence's characters being able to go in a number of different directions. Lawrence's Mystique, in particular, has seen a couple big changes that makes me want to see where they'll take her character next.
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If you don't like the X-Men movies odds are you won't like this one either, but it is nonetheless a fantastic comic book movie. The performances are all great from cast members both new and old, even if a couple characters end up getting shorted on screen time to make room for the mechanics of the plot. The action, especially with the addition of the portal creating character Blink, is inventive and thrilling. Days of Future Past has proven that the X-Men are here to stay on the big screen. It's almost like they never left.
