X-Men: Days of Future Past (USA, 2014)

Nine Things about the Movie X-Men: Days of Future Past

1. This is the most ambitious X-Men movie so far. And and while I liked it, it has the most problems of any X-Men movie so far.

2. It starts in the future, where all the mutants are being killed by giant robots called Sentinels. As a desperate last attempt at survival, they decide to send Wolverine's mind back in time 50 years to his younger self in order to stop Mystique from assassinating a scientist, which results in the creation of the Sentinels.

3. In order to stop the assassination, Wolverine (who, for some reason, does not look 50 years younger) must bring together Professor X and Magneto so they can find Mystique and do an intervention. They pick up a few other young mutants along the way.

4. The plot of the movie is basically a science fiction soap opera. While it fleshes out some of the X-Men universe nicely, the characters make nonsense decisions in order to needlessly stretch out the drama. And I can think of about a dozen other ways they could have stopped the creation of the Sentinels other than their half-baked "talk Mystique out of it" plan..

5. The action scenes are well-done and exciting, as are the special effects. While the X-Men characters are impossible and wildly unbalanced (I feel bad for the guy with the frog tongue), it's fun to watch them.

6. One problem with movie is that it's inconsistent - it breaks some of the rules that it sets up for itself, and mutants apparently develop new powers when they need to.

7. But the biggest problem with the movie is that it falls into the same trap that most time-travel movies do, especially when they are part of a series. Some scenes here should have happened in earlier movies, but they didn't. Some scenes in other movies shouldn't have happened, but they did. It's a continuity disaster.

8. The climax of the movie was so over-the-top and absurd that I just couldn't stop myself from rolling my eyes a few times.

9. This is not my favorite X-Men movie, but if you're a fan, it's worth seeing.