X Men: First Class

Marvel again, this is starting to look more and more like summer 2008 all over again. When it comes to comic books, you can find few series that can get as convoluted and confusing as the X-men. Be it the long continuity, the numerous characters, or the massive and I do mean MASSIVE amount of books they can have out in any given time. I’m a casual comic reader that’s starting to step his toe in to the vast waters of comic geekdom, but I can honestly say I am terrified by the sheer thought of trying to read X-Men, even with the help of things like Wikipedia to explain things. All that said, I do at least admire the characters and have been a fan of the animated TV shows and the first couple of live action movies. “X-men” and “X2: X-men United” were both very well done summer popcorn movies, but I felt a little bit of what I have come to call “Kill Bill Syndrome”, referring to genre style movies that get sequels that either lacked it’s predecessor’s narrative finesse or well paced character development, but had some stand out set pieces were just epic and made you not care too much, or vice versa. A great example is the two most recent James Bond movies. “Casino Royale” was a well played character driven movie with a couple decent action scenes but can drag at times, while “Quantum of Solace” had lots of great action but little substance outside bringing Bond some closure left over from the last movie. The first two X-men movies were very similar, the first one was all about action scenes with maybe some underlying racism/homophobia/prejudice metaphor the series has always been praised for, but that’s about it. The second movie had a much more substantive plot with some character development, particularly with Wolverine and Iceman, and MUCH more of the prejudice metaphor comes out here, though not too much in the way of stand out action. But as fair as I can be with movies, as much as I tend to give movies the benefit of the doubt, “X-men: The Last Stand” pretty much killed my enthusiasm for any further movies in the franchise, it was pretty weak both plot wise and in it’s action. The characters were bland save for Kelsey Grammer as Beast and Vinnie Jones as The Juggernaut, giving us that wonderful internet meme. (google “I’m the Juggernaut Bitch!” if you don’t know what I’m talking about.) It was lame, and actually pretty stupid at times, which is also why I didn’t see the Wolverine spin off, though from what I’ve heard and what little I’ve seen, I was the smart one there. So how is the new prequel “X-men: First Class”?
AWESOME!
This is seriously the first really really good super hero movie since “The Dark Knight”. Which is ironic because what made “The Dark Knight” work so well as a sequel was that all the set up was done in “Batman Begins” so we got to go right into the action and the movie got to surprise us with how much more dark and foreboding it was. This is basically the story behind all the things they mentioned all the way back in the first movie, we know that Magneto becomes a bad guy, we know that by movie’s end Professor X is going to end up in a wheel chair and we know that mutants are going to end up with a bad rap that won’t get any better, so how could this actually be better than the first X-men movies? Yes, I said it, this is far better, though the answer is a little tough to put into words besides just saying “HOLY SHIT THAT IS THE MOST AWESOME THING EVER!”
A lot of the credit has to go to the two leads, Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy, most especially Fassbender, who basically gets to create his own sequel to “Inglorious Basterds” in the first act by killing Nazis that have gone into hiding, only since he’s Magneto he gets to use super powers. But while his villainous side is great, he adds a lot of humanity to the part as the film progresses. McAvoy’s Professor Xavier has a great humorous side as well as the acting chops to make it work with lines that sound like Star Trek techno babble version 1.0. The supporting cast is also very great with Jennifer Lawrence as the new Msytique, who actually talks a lot more and, you know has a character past being Rebecca Romijin in practically nothing but body make up. Nicholas Hoult does a great job as Beast who also has a well played romantic subplot with Lawrence. And rounding it is out is Kevin Bacon as villain Sebastian Shaw, giving a nicely over top the performance in addition to yet another way for me to dominate in the six degrees of separation game.
But what is the plot you ask? Why, simply that Sebastian Shaw is set upon destroying humanity. He chooses to accomplish this by instigating an international incident at the height of the Cold War via the Cuban Missile Crisis. But the US has contracted Xavier and Magneto to create their own mutant team to stop them. To put it as an associate of mine did, it’s summed up like this: “How do you make the Cuban Missile Crisis awesome? Throw in superpowers.”
The mutant fights scenes are well handled giving everyone a chance to shine, and also showing that Matthew Vaughn’s ability to make “Kick Ass” actually… Kick ass, was not merely a once in a lifetime fluke. He also seems to get that with something like X-men, you can’t screw up the quiet moments either. Even when nothing much is happening on the screen visually, which is rare, the atmosphere and tension is so thick you’d need a bayonet the size of Michael Bay’s ego to cut through it. It’s filled with intrigue, suspense, and well rounded characters keep you so interested in every frame of this movie. Even things you know are coming, like Magneto’s turn to evil, pack a huge dramatic punch because it’s so well handled and built up to.
All this said, it is not without its short comings. January Jones of “Mad Men” fame, is certainly easy on the eyes, but doesn’t really have a lot of range, not helped by her character being not particularly well written as the stock femme fatale cliché. Also while Jason Fleming does add a lot without saying much as teleporting mutant Azazel, his character does remain a bit of a mystery, which in theory is ok, but something about the execution bugged me. But these are all nit picks, and don’t really spoil the movie.
Do I need to say anymore? Go see this movie! If you’ve seen it already, SEE IT AGAIN! Show the studios that this is what we want from comic book movies!

X-Men: First Class gets from me:

5 STARS out of 5