(Long Island, N.Y.) After the wretched X-Men: The Last Stand and the so-so X-Men Origins: Wolverine, I had given up hope that the once critically-acclaimed superhero franchise based on my beloved series of childhood comic books would ever turn out a watchable entry again.
Enter Matthew Vaughn, director of 2010’s hit funny-book flick Kick-Ass, and suddenly the series is back to…well, kicking ass once again. With the damage done to the X-Men storyline after The Last Stand, nothing short of a total reboot could have fixed the X-Men movies. But Vaughn, who was originally slated to direct X-Men: The Last Stand (but pulled out due to various reasons, mostly conflicts with Fox) and producer Bryan Singer (who directed the great X-Men 1 & 2), instead came up with a better idea: X-Men: First Class, a prequel set in the 1960’s that shows how the team of mutant heroes was formed. Since the regular X-Men movies took place in the near-future, we have a few decades of storyline continuity before we have to start worrying again about what a mess The Last Stand was.
Now we get to discover the mysterious origins of X-Men leader Professor Charles Xavier/Professor X (James McAvoy) and Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto (Michael Fassbender), both mutants; human beings born with special powers, representing the next stage in evolution for mankind. Starting out as friends and allies united by fate, Xavier and Lehnsherr end up at odds with the Hellfire Club, a group of evil mutants lead by Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon). To combat their foes, Xavier and Lehnsherr comb the globe, searching for young mutants to train in the use of their
powers to aid in the final showdown with Shaw, whose dastardly plot involves getting his sticky fingers into one of the most harrowing events of the 1960’s cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union: the Cuban Missile Crisis.
However, Xavier and Lehnsherr eventually develop a Martin Luther King Jr./Malcom X kind of split in their world view, with Xavier looking to have humans and mutants peacefully co-exist while Lehnsherr, a Jew who was scarred emotionally as a child by his interment in a Nazi death camp, views mutant kind as superior and seeks to aggressively protect them from a humanity that he believes will hunt down and persecute them. These opposing views create a rift between the two friends, and soon, that rift becomes a void, eventually drawing Xavier and Lehnsherr into a conflict with one another that will last for years…possibly the rest of their lives.
X-Men: First Class was great. It’s very well-done excellent acting, plot, casting, pacing, effects, humor, action…just great all-around. I wasn’t wild about all the origin changes from the comic, but what they did worked within the context of the movie. It was an origin movie that felt natural, organic, and flowed well, unlike most comic movies, which feel forced and rushed to just get to the superhero’s costumed debut or whatever. I’m already dying for a sequel.
The centerpiece of this movie was the chemistry and impressive dramatic abilities displayed between McAvoy and Fassbender, both fantastic actors who match up amazingly well when compared to Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, the respective originators of their roles in the primary X-Men series. In reality, there’s really not a weak link in the entire large cast, mostly made up of unknowns…well, except for Bacon, who’s devilishly sinister as Shaw, not to mention a number of cameos by well-known character actors. For long-time X-Men fans, there are also plenty of fun little references to the comics as well as the other movies in the series.
Oh, and the small cameo scene by a certain popular clawed, Adamantium-laced X-Man was the best use of the F-Bomb ever in a PG-13 movie.
Personally, X1 has always been my favorite X-Men movie, even though X2 is in many ways better. It’s hard to explain why…maybe it’s because the X-Men comic was very near and dear to me growing up, and it was awesome to have someone take the subject matter so seriously, especially at a time when superhero movies were rare and usually campy pieces of crap. I mean, that opening
scene with Magneto in the Nazi camp blew me away, because right then and there I knew this movie was going to be the real deal. The same with the scene in the bar when Wolverine cut the guy’s shotgun in half. That was perfect.
That said, for me First Class is about on par with X2, and just under X1. But I admit that a lot of my love for X1 is nostalgia, so who knows. What I do know is that X-Men: First Class is a great, great movie, and if you even have the slightest interested in comic book movies…heck, even if you have NO interest in comic book movies, see it anyway. This might be the one that converts you.
