One of my friends recently speculated that all of the films he was looking forward to seeing at the end of May/beginning of June would be underwhelming. Sadly, after seeing the three films he mentioned - Pirates 4, Hangover 2 and this - I have to confirm that his suspicions were correct.
I will delve right into the synopsis and that way anyone who just wants to know what I thought can skip to the juicy stuff at the end. Though a word of warning, there are spoilers in my critique so beware if you're going straight to the bottom of the page.
X-Men: First Class is set in the mid 60's, a long time before the events of X-Men, X2 or X-Men: The Last Stand. As such, the characters featured in those movies are younger in this film (and therefore now played by different, younger actors) and leading very different lives. Some of the characters haven't yet had their lives intertwined with people or events we already know about.
So what's going on with this bunch then? Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender), who we will later know as Magneto, witnesses the murder of his mother just so his nasty German captor Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) can see what his mutant powers are capable of. This sets him on a path of revenge. It's during his first attempt to even the score with Shaw that he meets young Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and the two join forces with the CIA to stop Shaw before he starts WW3. Their allies include Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) who we'll later come to know as Mistique and a whole bunch of mutants we've never met before. And so follows a tug of war between the bad guys and the good guys until the final showdown.
I think this has been one of the hardest films for me to judge because there was lots that I liked about it, and in equal measure, lots I really didn't like.
Lets start with what I liked about it; I liked the backstories (for the most part) of the established characters, and the introduction of characters not formerly shown in previous X-Men movies, Sebastian Shaw, Moira MacTaggert, Emma Frost, Banshee, Riptide, Azazel, Angel and Darwin. I loved the casting of Jennifer Lawrence as Raven/Mistique, I cannot gush enough over how perfect I thought she was. I similarly loved seeing Nicholas Hoult in this movie but I should point out that this was more because it was great to see him in a big movie rather than because I thought he was well cast.
I thought for the most part that the cast was excellent. However, I did not feel that they were particularly suited to their roles. The two leads in particular, McAvoy and Fassbender, are both great actors, but neither should have been cast in their respective roles. See, the beauty in casting Jennifer Lawrence as Raven is that you can very easily imagine her becoming the character later (or earlier?) portrayed by Rebecca Romijn. You cannot however, picture either McAvoy or Fassbender becoming Patrick Stewart or Ian McKellan. Herein lies the problem as you don't ever really believe they are those characters.
My other problems with First Class lie in the backstory. I know I said I liked the backstories, and I did, to a certain extent. What I didn't like was how they manipulated facts or timeline that had already been established.
*Spoiler Alert*
In previous X-Men films it was established that Erik and Charles were bestest oldest buds before they became enemies yes? Well, in the First class re-write it turns out Erik and Charles barely knew each other a few months (if that) before Erik cripples Charles and becomes Magneto. Sound right? Mmm...
In the same way that Charles and Erik's friendship seems to have been manipulated to fit the story, the writers have also created a long standing, very close friendship between Charles and Raven. Now I'm sorry but if Charles and Raven had been as close as is indicated in this film, wouldn't that have come up at some point in the other movies? How betrayed he felt that she left him for Erik? How he missed her etc? No, okay then, lets move on.
*Here endeth the Spoiler Alert*
Finally, how is it that we see Emma Frost as a young girl at the end of X-Men Origins: Wolverine (at the same time we see an older Patrick Stewart version of Professor X) and yet in X-Men: First Class which is obviously set before these events, Emma Frost is much older? Riddle me that First Class scriptwriters!
So all in all I was disappointed, not so much by the movie but by how little regard it had for the previous films? Maybe it's just because I'm not an expert on the comics but I'm going to be interested to see what my Marvel expert friends have to say about this installment of the X-Men films. 6.5 out of 10.
Viewing Date - 2nd June 2011
UK Release Date - 1st June 2011
Cast Overview:
James McAvoy ~ Charles Xavier
Michael Fassbender ~ Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto
Kevin Bacon ~ Sebastian Shaw
Rose Byrne ~ Moira MacTaggert
Jennifer Lawrence ~ Raven/Mystique
January Jones ~ Emma Frost
Nicholas Hoult ~ Hank McCoy/Beast
Caleb Landry Jones ~ Sean Cassidy/Banshee
Alex Gonzalez ~ Janos Quested/Riptide
Jason Flemyng ~ Azazel
Zoe Kravitz ~ Angel Salvadore
Edi Gathegi ~ Armando Munoz/Darwin
Lucas Till ~ Alex Summers/Havoc
Oliver Platt ~ Man in Black Suit
Director ~ Matthew Vaughn
Writer(s) ~ Ashley Miller (Screenplay), Zack Stentz (Screenplay), Jane Goldman (Screenplay), Matthew Vaughn (Screenplay), Sheldon Turner (Story) and Bryan Singer (Story)
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