Peter Dinklage plays a US military scientist developing the Sentinels program.

Fan Bingbing is Blink

'X-Men: Days of Future Past' premieres in London

Perhaps the film's standout sequence features the much-discussed new addition of Peter Maximoff, aka Quicksilver (American Horror Story regular Evan Peters).The rights dispute that kept the character out of previous films has been resolved, allowing him to appear in both the X-Men and Avengers franchises, albeit without cross-referencing. His super-speed skills are conveyed by shooting at 3,000 frames per second, notably when Peter runs around the walls during a fabulously staged Pentagon break-in, whimsically accompanied by Jim Croce singing Time in a Bottle. With his silver shag, Pink Floyd T-shirt and mischievous sense of humor, Peter is a terrific character who breathes playfulness into the movie, and many will be sorry he doesn't stick around longer.

Fassbender's young Erik/Magneto was the revelation of First Class, and the actor again shows riveting self-possession and charisma to burn-not least when he's standing astride the roof of a moving train in bellbottoms while tearing up railway tracks. But this movie belongs to Jackman and Lawrence.

Logan/Wolverine has possibly never been more compelling. In his seventh turn in the role, Jackman brings powerful physicality, laconic humor and depths of sorrow beneath his gruffness that make him an unusually nuanced figure for a sci-fi action movie.

Switching from her honorable Hunger Games heroine into bad ass mode with supreme ease, Lawrence is sensational, whether slinking around in Mystique's body-hugging blue reptilian skin, displaying the shape-shifter's balletic fight skills or adopting seductive human form. Her romantic friendship with Charles, stretching back to their childhoods, adds poignancy to Mystique's struggle, notably in a wonderful airport scene during which Professor X gets inside her head via random people in the terminal.

It's hard to imagine fanboys having too much to grumble about here, as Singer has pulled together an ambitious, suspenseful screen chapter that secures a future for the franchise while facilitating continued reinvention. Audiences should sit tight through the end credits crawl for an enigmatic signoff scene that provides a taste of the next installment, X-Men: Apocalypse.