Before I start the review I just wanna point out that I in my personal opinion thought ‘The Last Stand’ and ‘Wolverine: Origins’ were piles of donkey ball crap that should never have been made and pretend never happened.
X-Men: First Class on the other hand did happen and it is by all accounts one of the best comic book movies of 2011 and most importantly one of the best X-Men films to come out in a while.
Directed by Matthew Vaughn who did Kickass and Produced along with X-Men 1 and 2 Director Bryan Singer, the film follows the origins and building friendship and relationship between Erik Lensherr played brilliantly by Actor Michael Fassbender and Professor Charles Xavier who surprisingly is also done good by Actor James McAvory.
The film is set in the Cold War Era and sees the rise and revelations of Mutant Kind to the world while also exploring the meeting between the Nazi Hunting Erik and womanizing party goner genius Charles who join forces together to bring together a group of gifted teens to help them stop the planning of world war three during the Missile Cuba Crisis by the film’s villain Sebastian Shaw played by Kevin Bacon and who leads his own group of Mutant Henchmen which consist of Nightclawer’s future daddy Azrael, Tornado creator Riptide and Telepath, diamond Armoured sex Hottie January Jones who plays this version of Emma Frost/White Queen more accurately then the last bitch who attempted it.
As a side note, what’s with the negativism towards her? Seriously, I thought she did a good job with what was given and kept true to the cold, slutty bitch in the comics. Seriously, you people need to CHILL OUT(Wink,wink) and just have fun and enjoy what you see. At least its not Megan Fox doing her best to whore herself out in a film like this. With Jone's character it made sense.
Characters such as Cyclops, Storm, Jean Grey aren’t part of the early group who make their appearance known here but instead is taken over by new comers to the franchise, Banshee, Mystique, Hank McCoy whose origins into Beast is shown along with Hottie Angel, Alex Summers aka Havok who may or may not been either Scott Summer’s future father or older brother and lastly Darwin, the only black mutant character in the film who never gets to truly shine through and is wasted away before he gets the chance to kick some real ass.
RACIST BASTARDS!!! HOW DARE YOU KILL THE ONLY BROTHER IN THE FILM. IM SHOCKED I TELL YOU. SHOCKED.
Hopefully he’ll come back in the sequel like he does in the comics. Opps, Spoiler alert heheh. But seriously, he had the most interesting powers and it’s a shame he had to go out so quick after been introduced. Damn Hollywood clichés. When will they end huh?
The film starts surprisingly with a shot by shot recreation of the original X-Men Opening and from there on in the film pays tribute to what Bryan Singer created in his two films.
Other tributes include the fact that Vaughn manages to make a X-Men film that almost feels like a James Bond Classic. Michael Fassbender would play a brilliant, cunning, and devilish 007 if he could and other homage’s such as the film’s number of sexy women and muted henchmen and secret villainy designed HQs gives Vaughn’s take on a X-Men a unique atmosphere unmatched by its other films.
As mentioned already in interviews by them, First Class is a Prequel that pays homage to the first two Predecessors and not its last two under-developed piles of shit sequels. Even the filmmakers are pretending those films never happened.
So basically, if anyone had any worries of First Class having continuity issues when it came to those specifics films can rest easy because those films I REPEAT, NEVER, EVER, EVER, NEVER, FUCKING HAPPENED. Let me refresh minds once more. ORIGINS AND LAST STAND ARE DEAD!!! FORGET THEM.
However, that doesn’t stop the film from suffering from some small continuity issues but those can easily be explained away thus isn’t as big of a issue like most would believe because overall, First Class manages to stand on its own merits and shine through by itself and creating a new world of stories and mythologies to be told and explored regardless of the fact that it is a prequel to 1 and 2 because First Class at the same time is now officially the Reboot of the Franchise as well and I personally am looking forward to the film exploring more of the past and using real events to base the films plot in while developing the characters it has at its helm already and bringing in newer ones at the same time.
Other flaws include some small obvious bad CGI coughEmmaFrostcough and the overall climax of the film isn’t as fulfilling as the previous ones and is somewhat a major let down in that department.
However, the emotional and psychological aspect of the film and its characters is retained well enough here to give it a proper good send off. And the Ending of the film will have fans crying in Joy (Or Disappointment.) along with one or two small little cameos that some will be…Shocked and surprised by.
In Conclusion…First Class is a must see film in general that delivers on great character building, emotional moments and actions scenes. The star attraction here is the performances of Fassbender and McAvory who manage to create a interesting screen chemistry together like that of their older predecessor counter-parts while also adding in the elements of teenage relationships/friendships/teamwork and exploring the different developments between each of the unique characters in the film.
It manages to accomplish all this along with the themes of friendship and revenge while at the same time asking the question of what it means to be different and how truly we’ll all really the same and should learn to accept who we are no matter our individual differences or opinions. Well, that is what I got from it anyway, correct if I’m wrong, NO? Then…FUCK OFF. CHEERS!!!
Overall, I give this a rating of 8/10.
Not perfect by any means but better than the last two films and even X-Men 1 but not as a fully developed and established as X2 was. But given more time along with Vaughn’s quick productive direction to guide the cast and crew yet again, the sequel can only be the next best thing. But for now First Class delivers on what a Summer Blockbuster should be all about.
