The X-Men of the future have to send one of their men to the past to change the destruction of their race. Wolverine must go back into the past to prevent the capture of Mystique whose DNA is coveted by a weapons scientist, Bolivar Trask. It is the near future and super cyborgs called Sentinels have the ability to identify and kill mutants ruthlessly since they were patterned after Mystique's DNA that has unique adaptive capabilities. Millions of humans and mutants have been killed and among the few left of the X-Men are Xavier, Magneto, Storm, Kitty Pryde, Wolverine, Bishop, Iceman, Colossus, Blink, Sunspot, and Warpath who have all gathered in a Chinese monastery in the mountains. They need to go back to the 70's to prevent Mystique from assassinating Bolivar Trask, a defense contractor who is the inventor of the Sentinels. The assassination will trigger a series of events, the most feared one being Mystique's capture and experimentation upon, that will eventually lead to the creation of the unbeatable Sentinel. Only Wolverine can survive such a time jump so his conscience is sent back in time by Kitty Pryde. Xavier and Magneto tell him to convince their younger selves to help the cause and tell them of their bleak future if the assassination plot pushes through.
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Wolverine wakes up in the 70's and finds Xavier who has been traumatized and scarred by the Vietnam war, having most of his students and young teachers drafted and killed. He is also broken up from losing Mystique and Magneto, whom he regarded as good friends. He is being cared for by Beast, and is now a junkie. One side effect of his drug use is his loss of mental powers, another is his regaining of the use of his legs. Wolverine explains the situation and convinces him to find Mystique, but not before finding Magneto first since they will need his help.
Magneto has been captured by the U.S. government and is kept in an underground facility under the Pentagon. He is charged with killing JFK. Wolverine, Charles, and Beast recruit Quicksilver, the only mutant who can get in and out of the facility with the least detection. Together they bust Magneto out of prison and get him up to speed about the mission.
Meanwhile, Mystique is on a mission herself, freeing mutants and tracking Bolivar Trask who has killed many of her mutant friends while experimenting on them. She plans to kill him at a Peace Summit in Paris.
Xavier, Magneto, Wolverine, and Beast fly to Paris but while they intervene to stop the assassination plot, things go horribly wrong when Magneto tries to kill Mystique, and Wolverine encounters a young Gen. Striker, causing him to have seizures over in the future realm where Kitty Pryde is controlling his mind. At this time, in the future version, Sentinels are starting to gather outside of the Chinese monastery, and with Wolverine's unstable condition, the X-Men are running out of time.
In the Paris incident, Mystique escapes and is wounded by Magneto, and Trask gets some DNA from her blood. Magneto goes rogue. Trask convinces the U.S. government to greenlight his Sentinel program and they schedule an unveiling at the White House. Xavier regains his mental powers and tries to stop Mystique, but she is hell-bent on killing Trask. At the unveiling, Mystique poses as a secret service agent and tries to kill Trask, but chaos ensues, and Trask and the President are whisked to an underground safe room. Meanwhile, Magneto flies in a sports stadium and encloses the White House. He has also controlled the Sentinels. He "summons" the metal safe room to the surface and gets in a stand off with Trask, who is really Mystique in disguise. Mystique fires a gun at Magneto and stuns him. Meanwhile, in the future, Sentinels are approaching the monastery, and are ripping apart all the mutants. Magneto, Xavier, Kitty, and Wolverine are about to be sitting ducks inside...
Back in the 70's, Xavier begs Mystique to show her good side, and she does not kill Trask. Magneto flies away. Mystique walks away as well. At that moment, the future wherein the remaining X-Men await their deaths, does not exist and disintegrates.
Wolverine awakes in another version of the future, at Xavier's school for mutants, and awakens to a time wherein Jean, Cyclops, and Storm are still alive. Xavier welcomes him back and tells him that he kept his promise of looking out for those people that he loved.
Best part of story, including ending:
I love the time travel element, and all the key characters from all the X-Men films being together in one movie.
Best scene in story:
When Quicksilver whisks Magneto out of his plastic prison, and because of the speed, Magneto gets a little motion sickness.
Opinion about the main character:
Wolverine is the bridge to the past and the future, and he is given this big mission of stopping this cataclysmic event from happening and he does a fantastic job of it.
