XMen days of future past. The review.

The future is rubbish. (Isn't it always in sci-fi epics?)
Shape-shifting Transform...er...Sentinels have laid waste to the mutant world. 
Making a Last Stand, (another one), Storm, Professor X, Magneto, Kitty Pryde, Frozonefrom The Incredibles (oh, apparently not), and a few other mutants playing Portal (for real) take on the mighty Destroyers from Thor (oh, apparently they aren't, though they seem to be variations of them).

Thankfully Ms Pryde has the power to send the long suffering X types back in time so they can get their collective derrières kicked again.

What our heroes need is someone who can go back to 1973 and stop Miles Dyson inventingSkynet... er, the little guy from Game of Thrones - Trask (the always wonderful Peter Dinklage).

The 'Sarah Connor' in this Terminator-style X-Men epic is Raven, aka Mystique, who still looks very blue and rather plastic. At no point does she 'put metal in the science oven'. Or will she get an Oscar for this. But Jennifer Lawrence is still one of the greatest young actresses you've ever seen.

So while she tries to kill Trask in 1973, Hugh Jackman shows off his stunning pecs (like crumpled wrapping paper stuck on an Action Man) and his rear end, for which millions of mums were truly grateful.

As Logan, aka Wolverine, is sent back to his 1973 body, he has to persuade Beast (Nicholas Hoult) and the young, doped up but still groovy Professor X (the brilliant James McAvoy) to help him break Magneto (Michael Fassbender) out of his plastic Penatgon prison and stop Mystique killing Trask.

Of course Magneto is the uber villain whose friendship with Xavier usually consists of a game of chess, saying "Charles" a lot, promising to help, and then betraying him with OTT set pieces involving twisted metal. It's like GroundX Day.

On the plus side, Fassbender is as great as ever and looks very cool in a hat. A bit like Bowiein the 1970s. All cheekbones and intrigue.

Thankfully our heroes are helped by Quicksilver, the breakout new star of the show whose lightning-fast reactions give us the movie's best set piece. A bullet-time kitchen scene filled with wit, style and panache.

Geeks of course spent part of the movie explaining to indifferent partners how Quicksilverwas also that kid in the post-credits sting for Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Only played by someone else. And his sister is Scarlet Witch. Or will be. Only not in 1973. 
Still following? Good.

Director Bryan Singer has a lot of fun with his best film since X-Men 2. Yes he's spinning about 20 plates at once, but does a good job of keeping most of them rotating, even if he spends a little too long on young Xavier meeting his aged self.

The movie is hugely ambitious, brilliantly made, nicely edited and scored (both by John Ottman), and you can see where the budget went just by watching the credits. 15,000 people worked on the movie, and I'm guessing 14,000 were just slaving over laptops creating the impressive effects.

The whole thing is engaging enough and features some of the best thesps in movies. But for me it needs a sucker punch moment. That scene which grabs the heart strings and makes me a little misty eyed.

Sadly there was none of this here, possibly because when every other person in a movie has a gift, it's hard to be amazed. It's like the old Python sketch, Bicycle Repairman. In a world where everyone is a superhero, you yearn for someone normal.

Naturally I'll be among the millions who flock to see X-Men: Apocalyspe in a couple of years, and imagine another 15,000 folks will be kept busy animating bits of fractured metal and the like. However, I'd rather see a movie shot like the outstanding NT version ofCurious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, without a single effect on a simple stage, for the sake of one sucker punch moment, where I care about the fates of the protagonists instead of just being indifferent to their inevitable resurrection.

Sometimes less really is more Bryan.

The Wolverine - The Review

It's hard to relate to a superhero who doesn't bleed, or if he does, not for long. Which is why the sixth outing for Hugh Jackman’s razor-clawed Canadian Logan, aka Wolverine, is partly a welcome breath of fresh air.

Robbed of his healing powers (yes, like Superman II), he becomes cause for concern as bullets suddenly hurt after all these years.
Setting it in Japan was also a wise move.

Since 2000, we've seen Wolverine tackle assorted villains in the States, so good to get a change of scene.

The first two thirds of James Mangold’s movie are a stylish, occasionally thoughtful affair, with our hirsute hero first clashing with generic bad bear hunters, and then sent East to be reunited with the Japanese officer he saved from nuclear death at Nagasaki.

Orbiting around these two men are assorted relatives, ninjas, yakuza, and the odd acid-spitting mutant (Svetlana Khodchenkova) who chews every scene she's in, and refuses to look embarrassed by an absurd green costume in the third act.

Sadly, it’s that final chunk that becomes Marvel-by-numbers: boss monster, aka a giant robot samurai; massive smack down, heat and serve.
I love Marvel films and robots as much as any fan, but they really need to add a few different colours to their generic antagonist palette. Chrome has been used on their cinematic canvas for way too long.

While there are echoes of assorted other films, such as Eastern-themed Bond epic You Only Live Twice, the disappointing Prometheus also reared its ugly head thanks to a wince-inducing self surgery scene and an ageing protagonist’s machinations. (No spoilers but all will become clear).

Thankfully it's far better than X-Men Origins, and The Last Stand, but X2 still stands as the saga’s high point.

Added to the mix are alluring, flame-haired aide Yukio (Rila Fukushima) and key heroine Mariko (Tao Okamoto).
They help tame the eponymous beast, and are a welcome distraction from the orgy of slashes and gunshots.

Good to see Famke Janssen back as ex-X-Man Jean Grey too, albeit as a ghostly presence and with a weird digital anti-ageing makeover reminiscent of Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen’s CGI anti-wrinkle treatment from X3.

Just a shame it’s all so meh. There are no sucker punch moments that get under the skin, and some of the dialogue is yawnsome. However, an action scene atop a bullet train adds a few fresh licks to the sense of Mission: Impossible déjà vu.

Stay tuned for the now obligatory credits teaser for the next key Marvel outing, in this case next year’s X-Men: Days of Future Past. Thankfully you won't have to stay through the entire credits trawl for the privilege either.

Not as much fun as Iron Man 3, or as ponderous as Man of Steel, but good escapism for a dull Sunday afternoon.