SINGAPORE - Time periods collide; director Bryan Singer is back; and fan favourites Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen - as Professor X and Magneto, respectively - are cast alongside their younger selves. Oh, and there’s every other X-Men you can imagine.

Welcome to X-Men: Days Of Future Past (DOFP), the movie that manages the near-impossible feat of not just cleaning up the mess that was Brett Ratner’s X-Men: The Last Stand (and for some, the X-Men Origins: Wolverine), but also establishing itself as one of the most gratifying superhero films in recent memory. For those of you not as fanatically-inclined, Singer brought the beloved comic series to the big screen with the excellent X-Men in 2000, and arguably started the comic book movie genre we know of today.

He followed-up with the equally excellent X-Men 2, delivering back-to-back super-duper rollercoaster rides that were a perfect mix of popcorn and pathos. Then X3 came along. It took 2011’s X-Men: First Class (with director Matthew Vaughn at the helm) to bring things back to order, reigniting the brilliance of the X-Men franchise.

It’s an ambitious undertaking to bring back key players from those early movies while referencing events in most, if not all, of the series’ past films. But in the reassuring hands of Singer, DOFP is enormously entertaining. Sure, given its time travelling scenario, it requires you to pay attention and, even then, you may question whether it all makes sense. But it’s worth it.

The sheer volume of characters means that some – such as Halle Berry’s return as Storm or Evan Peters’ new and brilliant Quicksilver - get slightly short-changed. But with the principal players all on top form, wickedly cool set pieces and the nudge-wink mix of humour and drama, DOFP does more than enough to overcome its imperfections and keep fans satisfied.

Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy’s unbelievable work fleshing out a young Magneto and Xavier in First Class is repeated here, and made all the more fascinating this time round as they play in tandem alongside the superb Stewart and McKellen. Hugh Jackman is his usual damnably endearing Wolverine self, while Jennifer Lawrence knocks it out of the park as Mystique.

The X-Men saga has been a bumpy, uneven ride. But with DOFP’s unfailing attention to detail - filled with genuine moments of pure excitement and joy - this love letter to the loyal fanboy has cemented its place in the superhero movie canon.

GENEVIEVE LOH