Welcome to The Morning After, where I share with you what movies I’ve seen over the past week. Below, you will find short reviews of those movies along with a star rating. Full length reviews may come at a later date.

So, here is what I watched this past week:

X-Men: Days of Future Past

Bryan Singer’s return to the X-Men franchise is a welcome one. While The Wolverine was satisfying and X-Men: First Class was fantastic, X-Men: Last Stand was forgettable and X-Men: Origins was largely disappointing. This uneven series of films showcased what made the original X-Men and its sequel X2: X-Men United so great.

This rebirth of the franchise unites members of the First Class team with those of their future selves as depicted in the original X-Men trilogy. As mutantkind is on the brink of annihilation, Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (Ian McKellen) create a plan that will send Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) into the past to convince their younger selves (James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender respectively) that Mystique’s (Jennifer Lawrence) assassination of industrialist Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage) will lead to the creation of adaptable sentinels that can absorb their powers and counter them, thus making them undefeatable foes.

As has been proven in prior films, this is a tremendous cast of talented actors including Oscar winners Lawrence and Halle Berry; Oscar nominees Jackman, McKellen and Ellen Page; and an mixture of new and old talents including Stewart, Dinklage, Fassbender, McAvoy, Nicholas Hoult, Evan Peters, Shawn Ashmore and Omar Sy. Combined in this potent ensemble, everyone performs terrifically.

The plot, which involves passages in the future and the early 1970’s, works hard to keep the potential temporal paradoxes to a minimum. The tightly-scripted narrative moves quickly and deftly through both time periods, establishing credible drama in both realms. It’s a complicated screenplay that could have been jumbled and confusing, but ultimately surpasses expectations.