Review of X-Men: First Class (2011) by Jollyg87 — 13 Dec 2011

There was a good movie here somewhere, but it got lost when the studio hired 4 writers to helm the script. The main problem with this new X-Men movie is that it's all over the place. It's all over the place with its characters, its story, and its style.

The main reason is that no scene lasts more than a few minutes. The movie jumps around so much that it's difficult to get involved. It was like the makers had three hours of material, and they were pressured by the studio to assemble a movie that was under two and a half hours.

Because of this, the movie jumps around from scene to scene, and none of the characters get any moment to shine. The movie desperately tries in vain to get us to care about them though. The dialogue gives off this manipulatively sappy vibe to it, and director Vaughn accompanies it with some overly dramatic music.

Speaking of Vaughn, I didn't really care for a whole lot of his directorial choices. He messes around with too many styles. Sometimes the movie feels like a live action comic book, and other times it goes for a campy Indiana Jones/James Bond vibe.

It's like Vaughn didn't have a clear vision for how he wanted to tell the story. There's also a lot of unintentionally awkward moments that Vaughn could have fixed by presenting them in a different way.

But "First Class" isn't all flaws. There's some neat visual effects, Fassbender plays an amazing Magneto, and Kevin Bacon plays one of the X-Men's most menacing villains yet, Sebastian Shaw.

When the script doesn't suck, Jennifer Lawrence also has a few nice moments as Mystique. And there are a few moments where Vaughn's style meshes with the rest of the movie. But other than that, X-Men: First Class ends up being squandered potential.

It would be nice for once in a comic book movie where the makers stop worrying about covering all of the bases, and instead, focus on a compelling story with rich characters to leave us wanting to come back for more.