X-Men: First Class - Review

I'm a bit of geek. I'm not ashamed to admit that. Sometimes the best way to chill out and relax is to play some XBox and kill some things and/or complete some quests. I get excited when I discover a new graphic novel to read and love it when great sci-fi/fantasy comes to the screen. This geekism was fuelled in part by my first viewing of X-Men in 2000 (yes 11 years ago!!), apart from Star Wars, it was my first proper encounter with the comic book sci-fi genre, and I loved it. I loved the feeling it gave that at some point, in some way the prospect of human evolution reaching a new point seemed somewhat plausible if quite fantastical. And best of all Hugh Jackman... Not just a good looking speciman but also a great actor and playing Wolverine has done massive favours for him, though his mutant role is still his best and most enjoyable. The second film X2 two years later was a great sequel, which expanded nicely on the first and left the end on an awesome cliffhanger. The third film...well all the cast returned again (a few exceptions...Nightcrawler?!). And now we have what inevitably comes to all movie franchises...a prequel. Here is my review.
 

Now this film didn't get off to the best start possible what with the eye offending, shoddy posters that looked hastily mocked up, which were released as the films' first official imagery. Even the director slagged them off, but I tried not to let this affect the perception of the film.

I was quite keen to see X-Men prequel as soon as possible, because I had been interested since the first film eleven years ago, to know the backstory of Professor X and Magneto, brilliantly played in the originals by Pactrick Stewart and Ian McKellan, these characters often hinted or remarked back to their pasts but we saw and knew very little. Now I have to say the first twenty to thirty minutes of First Class were good and established the main charcters well but it seemed very rushed, jumping through their childhoods very quickly in order to get to the main story segment. There were also several what I like to call "convenient" moments within the film. For example there is a scene when the junior mutants are showing off their powers to one another, which is enjoyable, but then they suddenly decide to have codenames and all very quickly come up with the names we are very familiar with as well as telling McAvoy and Fassbender's character's that they have come up with the names Professor X and Magneto for them....it's too chessy and quick and nothing works like that, even in film, it's all too convenient! Also there are moments in the film which seem straight out of a drama, which is great, it gives the whole mutant sci-fi thing a bit more depth, set amongst the Cuban Missile Crisis of the sixties, it gives deeper meaning. Then there are moments of great chessy-ness (if that is a word) and action sequences typical to a summer blockbuster film, which are good, but my problem is that the two sides of this film never really seem to quite mesh well enough together, the first half of the film is more dramatic but this starts to slowly slide away as the film progresses and turns towards the popcorn movie side. The scenes where telepathic messages and visions are seen by us, the audience, I'm still not sure whether or not they really worked, and it may have better to have had them on the cutting room floor rather than in the film, there's odd moments here and there which just mess up the original tone of the film before it leaves it behind completely.

Having said all that I did enjoy the film, though didn't leave with that big of a smile on my face. The two leads played by James McAvoy and Micheal Fassbender are great, they aren't trying too hard to fill in the roles which are known so well, which is a good move, though McAvoy's hand to the forehead seemed a bit too cheesy a gimmick and there were slight Irish accent fluctuations in Fassbender's German character. Both charcaters were well acted and you did root for them against Kevin Bacon's villain Sebastian Shaw, who gives a good charming-but-an-asshole performance. Their friendship itself was a bit lacking in the film, there wasn't too much shown of the two bonding, however the scene where Xavier helps Erik (magneto) with his power is well shot and memorable. Jennifer Lawrence as Raven/ Mystique and Nicholas Hoult as Hank McCoy/Beast were very intriguing and well cast, Rose Byrne as the human CIA agent was very unused and not very essential to the story apart from two scenes out of the whole film.

I really enjoyed the childhood scenes, they packed a good sense of tension and emotion into the film but as mentioned earlier, seemed to be rushed so as to move the story on. For me Fassbender was the star of the film, though there was a lot of him in the first half the focus on him became lost at the halfway point in the film, where it seemed to shift to Mcavoy, but Fassbender, for me at least, had the stronger charcter and performance.

Mixed reviews have been given for this film but I have not heard anything to say that this film was a masterpiece, and considering that the director was Kick Ass's Matthew Vaughn I was expecting more of this film. There are genuinely good moments in this film, the effects are good, costumes and settings are just right, not too over the top, and there are some well acted and emotional scenes which set up the two mains really well. It is a very long film, being over two hours long, and with the film struggling to be a drama and a blockbuster and not quite succeeding at either it could be that this film may lose a few dedicated fans.