Unreal Movie Review: X-Men: First Class

4 out of 5 stars

Alright, time to eat my words.

I have been exceptionally critical about every promotion I’ve seen for X-Men: First Class over the last two months, from its horrendously photoshopped trailers to its oddly paced, acted and scored trailers. I also had a hardened heart based on the fact that the last two movies in the X-series, X3 and Wolverine rank among some of the worst superheroes films I’ve ever seen, and surely a fifth installment could be no better.

But I was wrong. I vastly underestimated the acting ability of the cast, and the talents of the director, Matthew Vaughn. He’s behind another great recent superhero endeavor, Kick-Ass, but now I know that he doesn’t need over-the-top vulgarity and violence to make a quality film, and I think the understated First Class outpaces not only his own work, but a vast majority of superhero films in general.

Yes, it’s an origin story, but one that goes WAY back. We’re in the 1960s in the lead-up to the Cuban Missile Crisis, an event central to the plot of the film and as we learn, caused by mutants.

“Drink until it makes sense I’m in this movie.”

The mysterious Hellfire Club has a plan for world destruction via a provoked nuclear war so that mutants may rules the remnants of the other when the humans have burned away. Asshole-in-chief is Sebastian Shaw, and all-powerful energy consuming mutant that keeps him looking like a 50 year-old Kevin Bacon in perpetuity.

And it IS Kevin Bacon! Despite the fact that you would think he belongs nowhere near an X-Men movie, he does a very good job as Shaw here, who is an incredibly cold hearted villain not afraid to kill on a whim. On his arm at all times is the lovely Emma Frost, played icily by January Jones who effectively looks good in the skimpy white lingerie outfits her character is known for. Her power is a little more questionable, as she’s both a telepath and possesses the ability to turn into a giant diamond, which is apparently effective for deflecting mind invasion, but not a whole lot else, as at one point it’s apparent she can be cracked like glass despite being made of the most durable material on earth. Well, besides adamantium of course.

No, her power is NOT hypno-boobs surprisingly.

On team good guy is a young Charles Xavier (James McAvoy), a brilliant geneticist who adopted a young Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) when she invaded his home looking for food while they were both children. While I’m pretty sure this history is found nowhere in the comics, it serves to tie major plot points together across this film, and later ones, and theirs is one of the most interesting relationships in the film.

Xavier runs across Erik Leshnsherr, a man who can bend metal to his will, on a rampage to track down the man who made him into a monster back in a Nazi concentration camp, Sebastian Shaw. The two join forces to assemble a team of young mutants to help out with the fight, and it was nice to see the film slip some well placed surprise cameos into the middle of the film, and didn’t make us wait until after the credits.

The writing, acting and directing here is just of a higher caliber than nearly any other superhero film to date. It feels less like a summer blockbuster and more like a character study. Instead of a series of explosions and mutant power battles stuck together with duct tape, we actually have character development, emotional breakthroughs and the whole thing feels very tight and well scripted. James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender deserve special accolades for their portrayals of Xavier and Erik respectively. Though Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen looked the parts to perfection in the other films, I think that the younger duo has brought more weight to these characters than they’ve ever had before.

Fassbender’s Magneto is particularly incredible.

Perhaps the only real problem the movie suffers from is its tireless devotion to fit in with the cannon of the other four films so there’s not a hair out of place in the consistency between them. The film goes so far to do this they even give Mystique some odd non sequitur mutant power to explain why she’s half as old as Xavier in the future, despite them being no more than a few years apart here. More pressingly though, this has other implications for the cast, like since we saw Cyclops recruited as a teen in Wolverine Origins, he can’t be a part of the original team here. Or seeing as Iceman and Angel were introduced in the present day, they also can’t be in this original squad.

In fact, practically NO members of the true “First Class” are here save one, Beast (Nicolas Hoult). Instead, the film has to dig deep in the barrel for any usable mutants that have been left untouched by the four films, which leaves rather obscure and often silly characters like Banshee, Havoc, Darwin and Angel. But not the Angel you’re thinking of, this one is a girl and has bug wings and shoots fireballs out of her mouth.

Using this rather strange collection of mutants and their respectively rather odd powers results in some rather awkward fight scenes near the end of the film. While Erik tearing up a Russian compound with his metal bending skills is a truly badass sight to behold, a boy flying by screaming loudly chasing a female dragonfly doesn’t seem like it belongs in the same film. I think they would have benefitted a great deal by cutting off ties with the old, and recently stale, franchise entirely, starting with a blank slate and the correct characters that should have been allowed to be present.

Would have been nice to have the true original line-up in place.

But despite the rather eclectic cast it’s forced to have, First Class does pretty great things with it. It just feels human, and often daringly close to an effective drama, while past installments have been a mish-mash of fight scenes sprinkled with minimal comic lore. For the first two films, it was just cool to finally see our long beloved mutant heroes come to life (and it certainly helped that most were cast to perfection). The last two films overloaded on cramming in as many super powered beings as possible, and making sure the epic action sequences were the focal point of the films, as there wasn’t time for anything resembling actual emotion in the script.

First Class has managed to give a superhero movie depth, and honestly, that’s the first time I can honestly say I’ve seen that in the genre. Yes, Iron Man had a perfect blend of stylized action and comedy, The Dark Knight had great writing and a masterfully layered plot, but First Class has actual emotional weight to it, and I was proud to see someone finally get it. These don’t have to be just characters, they can be people.

Now, is it a better movie than all superhero films that have come before it? No. And I’ve certainly enjoyed others more overall, but it’s a solid step in the right direction, and First Class is far better than any fifth film in a franchise has the right to be.

4 out of 5 stars

“HERP DERP I’M FLYING A PLANE!”