It had been five years since the last X-Men movie came out to mixed (at best) reviews. Nerds (not including myself) had almost universally panned the film, referencing its unnecessarily of killing integral characters and claiming director Brett Ratner had ruined the series. Sitting in the theater Thursday night before a midnight showing of X-Men: First Class, I was fighting feelings of apprehension and X-citement. Would this prequel justify the long wait? Could it compete in a summer of no less than four superhero blockbusters?
Readers, I have no trouble saying to you the answers to both questions are a resounding yes.
James McAvoy (Charles Xavier) Michael Fassbender (Magneto) are not just competent, they're absolutely X-emplary. McAvoy's outstanding realization of the brilliant yet flawed future leader of the X-Men grounds the film, allowing viewers to see emotional center of the team as he aids and inspires his fellow mutants.
However, as much as McAvoy shines, the luster of this movie comes from Michal Fassbender's interpretation of a young Erik Lehnsherr. On a hunt for the Nazi scientist that killed his mother, the eventual leader of the Brotherhood spends the first half of the movie as a super-powered James Bond, traveling the world, garbed in the best menswear the 60's had to offer. (Yes, I commented on his fashion. Eff off.) Despite the awesomeness of these early scenes, it is when Lehnsherr meets Xavier that Fassbender's best moments are carried to the screen. Watching a young Magneto learns to control and focus the anger that has fueled his search for so long leads to emotional breakthroughs that Fassbender brings to life so X-pertly. Plainly put, the dude can act.
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| Fassbender...is...GOD! (My new catchphrase. You like?) |
Sure, there are a few holes that can be pointed out. Isn't Alex Summers supposed to by Cyclops's brother? What's he doing in 1963? It never seemed that Professor X or Beast had that strong of an emotional connection to Mystique in the first three films, but wouldn't you think Xavier would be torn apart every time he saw her? How does Moira MacTaggert transition from a super-sexy sixties CIA operative to the Doctor we see for a brief time in X-Men: The Last Stand? Unless you're heavily entrenched in mutant lore, these deviations shouldn't affect you in the slightest. In the universe these films have created and are forced to cover, there's not enough room to satisfy the comic book history of every popular mutant or X-Men-involved character. Get used to it. You're lucky Banshee ever made it into an X-film.
As far as the rest of the cast goes, I honestly couldn't find an obvious weak link. The younger actors (aside from Jennifer Lawrence, who succeeds as a young and insecure Mystique), don't get enough screen time to themselves to wreak any real havoc. They're almost always on screen with Fassbender or McAvoy, or they're splitting up dialogue within their own group, which keeps them on point. Nicholas Hoult X-cels as a young Hank McCoy, a genius determined to reverse the outwardly conspicuous aspects of his mutation. Myself, I fancied Rose Byrne (MacTaggert), who is absolutely stunning and keeps her end of the acting bargain, though the character is too often forced to be a human stand-by in a film of mutant confrontations. (Seriously though? Stunning.)
On the villainous side of life, Kevin Bacon adequately performs as a somewhat subdued Sebastian Shaw. Shaw serves as a physical foe for certain, but in this film his role is as a diabolically evil political strategist who stages the Cuban Missile Crisis. If nothing else, January Jones is drop-dead sexy as the ice-hearted telepath Emma Frost. Her outfits alone should keep the men's attention. The other two members of the Hellfire Club, Riptide and Azazel are seemingly throwaways, despite their comic history. Still, the teleporting Azazel manages to impress in the action sequences as a demented version of Nightcrawler (whom he fathered in the comic series). Riptide is well... a dude who can create tornadoes. While it looks cool, he tends to get beat up when involved a battle with other mutants. As he should.
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| I'm sorry... was I writing something? |
Speaking of mutant fisticuffs, there's enough solid action scenes to go-around, though perhaps they're not as frequent as you would like. The personal relationships drive this plot more than anything else, which means you're going to be invested in these characters and their lives, which in turn makes it worth seeing. It might have oodles of dialogue, but it's certainly a superhero movie.
What keeps the X-Men story popular are its central themes. There's almost nothing more relate-able than teens just wanting to be socially accepted. Being attacked for your genetic characteristics is a battle that seemingly has no end and appears in our daily lives whether we clearly see it or not. If you can't find someone in these mutant-laden movies with whom to relate, you're simply not human.
So go see it, yes?
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