Review: X-Men: First Class
If you’re reading this, you should have seen X-Men: First Class by now. If not, stop immediately, get to a theater ASAP, and watch it!
That's my way of saying everything you're about to read is overwhelmingly positive. Director Matthew Vaughn has a proven track record with the incredible genre films Layer Cake, Stardust and Kick-Ass. X-Men: First Class is in a class of its own above all those. With only 11 months to work, Vaughn has managed to perform the unthinkable: Reboot the franchise within a prequel that faithfully and seamlessly builds the universe seen in the previous X-Men movies.
These days with Mad Men dominating cable and network TV prepping copycat retro shows like Pan Am, this X-Men movie, set in the 1960s and dealing with the Cuban Missile Crisis, is coming to screens at the perfect time. Comic fans will be thrilled with the presentation of the characters in the Hellfire Club, a glaring omission from the third film, X-Men: The Last Stand. Yet, newcomers to the series will have no problem following the story as all the characters are introduced and their powers explained.
The first half of X-Men: First Class is a slow burn with a lot of dialogue as characters are introduced and storylines are built up, but the second half is a phenomenal work with action that matches more closely to the comics than has yet been seen in the X-Men films.
Beginning with a familiar scene from the first movie, X-Men: First Class expands on that and introduces Kevin Bacon's character, Sebastian Shaw. Comic fans will be familiar with him, but I won't say any more and risk spoilers for those who don't know, only that he has a keen interest in young Eric Lensherr's abilities.
Likewise, young Charles Xavier is introduced, and we get to see a refreshing new side of Professor Xavier, lustful and humorous and slightly vain, who doesn’t yet bear the weight of the world on his shoulders. James McAvoy is perfectly cast here and has become my new favorite actor to play Xavier (sorry, Sir Patrick Stewart). Likewise, Michael Fassbender brings a stormy intensity with a hint of a warmer human side to the role of Magneto. There are too many other great actors in this to list them all, but the only disappointment was January Jones' Emma Frost, who displays all the personality and charisma of an Austin Powers femme-bot.
People are comparing this movie to X-Men 2: X-Men United and seem evenly divided over which is better. That is high praise as #2 remains one of the greatest comic adaptations of all time and until now was the clear winner of the series. After sleeping on it, I’m happy to consider them perfectly even, with both serving as the standard by which other films should be judged. Together, with #1, they encompass an excellent sweeping trilogy covering the lives of Xavier and Magneto. If X-Men: First Class is the hit it deserves to be, we should expect to see more in summers to come.