It’s no secret that I try to avoid news regarding upcoming films, but with my circle it’s sometimes difficult to escape. As information trickled in for X-Men: First Class I was one of the few skeptics. Sure Kick-Ass was a critical hit (if we exclude the opine of one overzealous kook) but it wasn’t a blockbuster. Did bring Kick-Ass director Mathew Vaughn on board for a X-Men reboot… prequel… “prequel boot” make sense? And what of the cast? The way I recall it the X-Men didn’t take off until the second team appeared with characters such as Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, not to mention the 3rd most popular Marvel character Wolverine. Wolverine is so popular that a cartoon launched called Wolverine and the X-Men. That’s right, Wolverine has gone Tony Orlando. So what chance does an X-Men film have that takes place before the famous team, and covers a story of increased predictability?
For what it’s worth, X-Men: First Class stands alone as the best prequel ever made, telling the story of the friendships forged by a young Charles Xavier (James McAvoy). At an early age he meets Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) who has the ability to shape shift. Using his powers of telepathy, he is able to relate to her and they essentially become siblings. With a starkly contrasting origin, Erik (Michael Fassbender) is brutalized at a Nazi concentration camp at the hands of Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon). Sebastian experiments with Erik, forcing him to control his power over metal. There is no love between the two, so years later Erik sets out on a vengeful search for Sebastian.
The paths of Erik and Charles converge when they both attempt to stop Sebastian and his team of evil mutants from an as yet unrevealed scheme. Realizing they need a team as well, Charles and Erik build the X-Men, a mutant-only clan of young heroes in need of fine-tuning their gifts.
Director Vaughn takes some liberties with music and editing, but First Class still appears related to it’s brethren. I guess part of that relation calls for some shoddy composite shots mixed with the occasional brilliance. The team’s Blackbird plane looks great, as does some of Banshee’s flying. We’ve seen similar effect before from the series as powers tend to overlap, but there isn’t anything to be angry about. Actually some of the powers are put to surprising use, making the PG-13 warranted. I know that if I could teleport, my first through wouldn’t be how could I efficiently kills score of people with my power.
Audiences will have no trouble embracing McAvoy and Fassbender. Also worth noting is Rose Byrne, as the CIA agent who’s involvement kickstarts the team. Wish I could say as much for the daughter of rocker Lenny Kravitz, as I’m puzzled over why she’s here. At any rate some old friends make surprising cameos, perhaps the best ever.
The climax of X-Men: First Class is cleverly woven into the Cuba Missile crisis, but much of the mutant equals homosexual subtext has been omitted, spare Beast’s “coming out”. This is understandable given that the film paints humans as surprised instead of harboring a prejudice over what they’ve just discovered. It’s difficult to justify hate toward something you just met.
Purists will most assuredly find factual faults for disagreement as very little of the team’s composition fits with the comic books. Concerning the structure of the established films, X-Men: First Class holds most of it together. There is the problem of completely excluding X-Men Origins: Wolverine from canon, and the fact that Mystique and Professor X must had excommunicated each other in the present day, but the script—with the help of Bryan Singer—is strong enough to even weave in elements from the franchise killing X-Men: The Last Stand. There’s plenty more action than the Super Bowl advertisement bills and, characters actually have an arch (this is getting to be very rare these day), and even appropriate laughs. X-Men: First Class betters the gene pool. ***
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