Review of X-Men: First Class (2011) by Dabronc777 — 02 Jun 2011

Saw it at the midnight premiere and was wholly excited for matthew vaughn's triumphant comeback to the series the once held the highest rank among superhero movies. And you know what? I was right to be excited because this film delivers on almost everything a fan could ask for.

But before the good is the bad: if you are a fan of the comics and know the canon inside and out, (like I do) prepare to suspend your disbelief as the film takes the established origins and throws them out the window. Yes Xavier and Erik are the same but the hellfire club is altered quite a bit, there is a new first class and Moira McTaggert has changed quite a bit. These are just major things, but alot else has been altered to fit the film. This was the sole negative mark for me, and it wont be for many who see the film.

On to the good, the acting is fantastic, the scenes are huge to the point of ridiculous, the action is plentiful and the theme is as strong as it was in X2. Of course James Mcavoy and Michael Fassbender play the leads and are outstanding at that, playing the comrades-turned-rivals Xavier and Magneto. Their relationship drives the film and is played out spectacularly on screen. We see the emergence of their friendship and the ideological differences that drive them apart. But the supporting cast are just as fantastic, Kevin Bacon plays a menacing Sebastian Shaw, January Jones is a frost queen as Emma Frost and Jennifer Lawrence as the moral centerpiece Mystique.

The setting, 60's cold war drama lends well to the action at hand, people with superpowers beating the stuffing out of humans and one another. We are shown JFK speeches and Buicks the size of ships driving everywhere. The Cuban Missile crisis becomes the pivotal climax of the film as mutants battle it out while the US and USSR are preparing to the same on a larger scale. The final scene on Cuba is tremendous jumping off point for a continuation for this timeline. But the best scene to me (as a comic fan) was a 10 second scene in the second arc of the film involving Magneto, Xavier and one Wolverine that is total fan service and had me laughing harder than any joke to be found in the Hangover II. This is why I trust Marvel with their franchises, small shout-outs to fans of the series in several of their films.

To sum it up, this is a movie well worth the time of anyone this blockbuster season, from the teenager looking for a superhero film, to the fan who was going to see it regardless and even to the average movie-goer who simply enjoys a good film. I whole-heartedly recommend it.