The summer blockbuster season of 2011 saw a flurry of high quality comic book and superhero movies released, particularly those based on Marvel Comics characters. While Thor and Captain America served to set up next year’s Avengers mega-blockbuster, another Marvel property returned hoping to reinvigorate its fizzling franchise. X-Men: First Class takes us to the past to experience the origin story of the very first X-Men team. More importantly, it is the story of how Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr (Professor X and Magneto, respectively) became friends and the events that drove them apart.
So does the film fly high like the Blackbird, or does the Blu Ray remain in coach?
At the peak of the Cold War, Sebastian Shaw and his warmongering group of fellow super powered mutants, The Hellfire Club, set their plan in motion to initiate World War 3. CIA agent Moira MacTaggert enlists the help of Charles Xavier, an expert in genetic mutation (and a mutant himself) to help her stop Shaw. However another mutant is also after Shaw; Erik Lensherr is on a lifelong mission of vengeance against the former Nazi. When Erik was just a youth, Shaw led the mutant-related research at a concentration camp where he and his family were being held. To unleash his magnetic mutant power, Shaw murdered Erik’s mother, using his emotional pain to trigger the change. As fate would have it, Erik and Charles cross paths and, along with a team of mutant recruits, attempt to stop their common adversary and prevent nuclear war. While this is the main plotline of the story, there is a lot more going on throughout the film. Like X2 before it, First Class manages to juggle many characters while still maintaining the brisk pace of the film. There’s really too much to go into detail but almost every (hero) mutant has their own small story arc. For example, the subplot about Beast and Mystique’s desires to look “normal” is particularly noteworthy in how their stories embody the ideological differences between Charles and Erik.
I had some initial misgivings about rebooting the X-Men franchise with teens, fearing it would be Twilight with mutants. However the folks at FOX Studios wisely distance these X-Men from Marvel Studios’ present day Avengers universe by setting this film during the tense time of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. This was a great move for a number of reasons. Firstly, it brings the X-Men back to the same era that the original comics were set. Themes of discrimination, social change and war are timeless but this era encapsulates a peak period for those themes. Along with added tension due to the onset of the atomic age and the big bomb, it just feels right for the X-Men to begin their story here. Secondly, it provides a fresh visual style that lets the film stand out from the many superhero flicks occurring in present day. And thirdly, the setting gives new/young viewers (who don’t understand the intricacies of character licenses and studio properties) a very simple reason why the Avengers and these young X-Men won’t ever run into each other. If down the road Marvel Studios ever gets full control of X-Men again, then they can easily pop them back into their continuity. It was a very wise move, indeed.
The performances and casting choices in the film are good for the most part. Kevin Bacon was a great choice to play the vile Sebastian Shaw; he’s just over the top enough to avoid being a cliché. January Jones as Emma Frost is a hard one to read – she plays it very cold and unemotional, a trait that Frost is known for, but the comic book version’s dry wit and charm is lost in the performance. Jennifer Lawrence plays a young Mystique with the right amount of teenage angst. The rest of the cast play their smaller parts well, but the real gems are James McAvoy as Charles Xavier and Michael Fassbender as Erik Lensherr. McAvoy’s Xavier is looser and funnier than Patrick Stewart’s, though that makes sense given his younger age. It lets him be instantly likeable and relatable. However he becomes serious when he needs to be and gives us glimpses of the future Professor X. And then there’s the continued (and successful) attempt to make Magneto the coolest Marvel movie character going. There is a fury boiling beneath the surface at almost every moment he is on screen, making sure that we hang on every one of his words and actions. It may not be a performance as enrapturing as Heath Ledger’s Joker but Fassbender’s Magneto in undeniably charismatic. With the way he infiltrates guarded areas with deadly ease and can still be completely charming and empathetic, I can’t help but compare him to a mutant powered James Bond. The two have great chemistry together on screen, and when they have their debates over mutantkind’s place in the world it echoes the chemistry of Stewart and McKellen. For me it was the strained friendship between Erik and Charles that was so incredibly interesting in the previous X-Men films and the same holds here.
Getting back to the Bond comparison, it doesn’t hurt that First Class’ wonderful sense of style shamelessly borrows from the look of the Connery-era Bond films from settings to the wardrobe. It’s a timeless visual style that feels classic yet futuristic. The big set pieces and special effects have the appropriate wow factor to them, though never too overblown. It’s obvious that director Matthew Vaughn had a clear vision of what he wanted and having Bryan Singer back on board as a producer was also a great move to get the series back on track, especially after the missteps of X3 and also X-Men Origins: Wolverine to a lesser degree.
My only real complaint about the film would have to be the same pacing that I previously applauded. Sure, the script is sharp enough that the film remains cohesive despite the exceedingly brisk pace, but there are moments I wish that scenes could have lasted just a little longer. Moments of dialogue usually only last a few lines before jumping to the next scene. It’s a little difficult to believe that such close friendships could be formed with so little said in such a short timeframe. It’s a surprising complaint considering the film still clocks in at 132 minutes. It’s also too bad, in a comic-purist way that this film had to tie itself to the original trilogy as the team is not the original lineup of creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. There are some excellent nods to the original comics like yellow and black suits but no Iceman, Cyclops or Marvel Girl here. It’s a minor complaint that admittedly amounts to fanboy bitching as this team really does a fine job setting the movie X-Men stage.
The Special Features of the Blu-ray are your usual self-congratulatory affairs; there’s an 8-part behind the scenes featurette, a mutant database giving background details about over 40 mutants, and a pretty cool feature where you can watch making-of videos about specific scenes of the movie that become available as you watch the film. Deleted and extended scenes are of course all available. It’s all fun stuff to watch but my interest in Special Features in general has slowly waned since they first started appearing on DVDs. Though I will say that for a project that I thought had a somewhat rushed development, a lot of thought and attention to detail went into it so kudos to the filmmakers for that.
X-Men: First Class is a briskly paced yet very charming summer popcorn movie. It’s a film that doesn’t beat around the bush; its themes and messages are worn on its yellow sleeves but for big blockbuster fare, that’s just fine. Winks and nods to the original comics and the original movies are littered everywhere, which is great for longtime fans of the series. It’s every bit as good as X2 and makes me eagerly look forward to more with these fresh faces, especially that dreamy Magneto. It’s the X-Men, first class all the way.
This review was based on a Bluray Disc copy of the film purchased by the reviewer.
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