"Let Them Fight!", declared Ken Watanabe. Who is playing Dr. Ishiro Serizawa - a scientist of a top- secret organization that is responsibility for  MUTO (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism).  He was advising the commander on the futility of engaging The MUTOs with military force and suggests that he place his hope on Godzilla, the Alpha Predator, that sits on top of the food chain.

The advice falls on dear ears, and the survival of the human race is hinged on a plan that involves destroying the MUTO with a nuclear bomb. The problem is, the MUTOs eat nuclear material! 

It stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ken Watanabe, Elizabeth Olsen,Juliette Binoche, Sally Hawkins, David Strathairn, and Bryan Cranston. The screenplay is credited to Max Borensteinbut includes contributions from David Callaham, David S. Goyer, Drew Pearce, and Frank Darabont (Wikipedia).

(Spolier Alert)

The story starts with the discovery of a MUTO's fossil along with two cocoons. One of which is open. The hatchling swims to the nearest nuclear facility to feed, where Joe Brody and his wife Sandra work as  Plant Supervisors. His wife dies in the ensuing nuclear leaks caused by the EMP emissions produced by the MUTO hatchling. For 15 years , the hatchling incubates beneath the nuclear station, which is by now, a quarantined area. The loss of his loss drives him to find the truth and learn everything he can about the monsters. This proves useful when Father and Son are arrested for entering the quarantine zone and Brody is able to predict another disaster using the remnants of his research.

The MUTO's EMP is more than a match for the Military Arsenal. The battles between Godzilla and the MUTOs were well choreographed and visually stunning.

The acting is good but there is a lack of characters, one could care for and invest in. At first, Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston)  seem like a candidate for that but his screen time was abruptly ended at a time, that his passion-filled grief over his wife loss had made a mark in the audiences' hearts. It was a shame really. Maybe the Director, wanted to instill in the audiences' mind that everyone was expendable in the movie. 

Godzilla, King of Monster, is a movie worth the watch. So, do so.

Rating : 8/10

Bryan Singer somewhat started the golden age of Super Heroes movies with his grounded take on the X-men back in 2000. Since then, movies from the genre, have followed this grounded format and those that don't, for example, Amazing Spiderman 2 gets panned by movie goers and critics alike.

Xmen: Days of Future Past was a potential banana peel due to its complex plot and crowded cast. It required the dexterity of a director of Singer's calibre to pull it off. 
And does he do so in flying colors.

Singer was able to combine the large number  of characters without alienating anyone and lets it all play like a sympony on screen. Complex time travel  storyline ? No problem. 

The interchanging of the Future and Past fighting scenes, was clearly and coherently done. 

Even those in the audience that are unfamiliar with property, will not feel lost.

The movie  ensembles a cast of Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Halle Berry, Anna Paquin, Ellen Page, Nicholas Hoult, Shawn Ashmore, Peter Dinklage, Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart. The story is written by Simon Kinberg, Matthew Vaughn, and Jane Goldman, with Kinberg writing the screenplay (Wikipedia). 

The acting was superb with notable performances from Fassbender and James McAvoy. Hugh Jackman put in a good shift as the Wolverine. It was refreshing to see a more articulate Wolverine than the usual angry Wolverine which we have grown accustomed to watching. Peter Dinklage was clearly unused as a villain and it was obvious, he was merely a plot device. Which is surprising that he left the Games of Thrones to play such a minor character. Jennifer Lawrence once again struggles to put up an inspiring performance as Mystique as least one that could equal what audiences have come to expect from Rebecca Romijn. 

(Spoiler Alert)

The movie starts in the distant future,with the Sentinel assault on the X-men refuge. 

After annihilating almost all of them. The X-men had found a way to go a few days back in time to warn themselves of an impending Sentinel invasion. Since they could go a few days back why not decades back before the sentinels were ever made. Mystique's murder of Trask- the creator the Sentinel and her subsequent capture is the anchor in the timeline which Wolverine would be berth to. He will wake in his younger body and find Prof X. and Magneto who is imprisoned beneath the Pentagon. QuickSilver's speed comes in handy in Magneto's rescue mission which easily is  the high point of the movie. The dialogue between Fassender and McAvoy were intense and gripping. And when juxtaposed with the future interactions of McKellen's Magneto and Stewart's Xavier unravels the complexities of their relationship.

The continuity problems that were pervasive throughout the movie was all corrected at the end in one swoop as a new timeline was drawn  for newer Xmen movies.

The few negatives are the seemingly lack of originality in some of the scenes. For example, the climatic end scene where Magneto points guns at the president and his entourage is similar to  one in  the First Xmen movie. The Maximoff a.k.a QuickSliver's scene felt like a ripoff of The Matrix and there are other Plot holes which you can find here.

This movie is a very solid entry into the summer blockbuster calander and has everything you want to see in a summer movie. Be sure to stick around for the post-credit scene, for a glimpse of Apocalypse.

Rating : 9/10

X-men: Days Of Future Past directed by Bryan Singer just hit the movie theaters across the nation. And unsurprisingly, it has been a big hit with audiences.

This new installment makes great strides in pushing the X-men franchise forward and is the best movie of the series albeit a slight improvement on Xmen: First Class. Its darker, tense depiction of the mythology, will play well with fans who, will definitely "forgive" a few of the glaring errors in the movie.

Bryan Singer did a great job in successfully weaving a very complex storyline with lot of characters without alienating anyone with the exception of Peter Dinklage/Trask, who was obviously under-used.

Read more in the review here. Lets move straight to the errors (Spoilers Inside).

A movie with such a complex storyline is bound to have errors although Singer's dexterity as a movie maker kept it to the minimum.
1. The timeline of the Wolverine's bone and metal claws created some confusion

2. Prof X's resurrection was never explained. Singer should have given some kind of explanation   especially when he included the scene of Wolverine killing Jean Grey in Xmen: The Last Stand. thereby negating the excuse that he was ignoring Brett Ratner's work.

3. In the climatic end scene, Magneto searches for the President, who is tucked away in an underground bunker. Magneto not only manages to penetrate deep down (I assuming this since the movie did not show how long they had to go underground but usually, bunkers are buried hundreds of feet underground and if it was not, then that is another error)  into where the bunker is, and not only able to bring out the bunker, he is able to know that the president is in there.

How is that possible? Except Magneto's helmet is a portable cerebro, there is no way he should know that there are people in the bunker.  Well some might overlook this but considering that Magneto himself at the beginning of the movie was buried, hundreds of feet beneath the ground and could not use his powers to bring an object from the surface to his underground prison to enable his escape, how then is he able to to use his powers to go hundreds of feet underground to bring out the bunker?

In First Class, Banshee/Prof X coordinated to find the submarine where Sebastian Shaw was hiding in and Magneto did the rest. This also contradicts the whole,imprisonment of Magneto under hundreds of feet of sand and concrete would stop him, since the same character pulled a submarine from hundreds of feet beneath the ocean.

The last time I checked, water, which the ocean is made from, is a non-metal. Therefore, Magneto's underground prison and his ability to find the President were  serious plot holes.

4. Mystique electing not to kill Trask IMHO is not sufficient to dissuade the President from, at least having a contingency plan against the mutants. On the contrary, a mutant "invasion" of the White House, should only reinforce the need to continue with the sentinel program. The seemingly impervious White house just gets ripped apart and everything is okay? Singer needed something else to correct the timeline. A lot more thought should have been put into the end.

Marvel released the second trailer for the much anticipated upcoming movie, The Guardian of The Galaxy starring Chris Pratt as Star-Lord, Zoe Saldana as Gamora, Dave Bautista as Drax the Destroyer, Vin Diesel voicing Groot and Bradley Cooper voicing  Rocket Raccoon.

The movie is directed by James Gunn and opening 1st of August, 2014.