This year isn’t showing any signs of melting the big ball of frozen water as we’re being bombarded by the likes of Thor, The Green Lantern, and Captain America. Over the years though, I’ve found that superhero movies have slipped a little and the movies aren’t quite up to scratch. In recent years the only superhero movies worth mentioning are Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and possibly Kick Ass, if you can class that as a superhero flick.
Marvel have largely been in the dark; releasing plenty of films but creating few ‘greats’, which is strange considering of all the comic book publishers they have the most superheroes at their disposal. I think the last truly great Marvel film was Spiderman and Spiderman 2. I’m drawing a total blank trying to think of others.
The X-Men franchise has been a pretty successful one over the years, spawning various TV series, video games, and of course movies. Generally the film adaptations have been hit and miss; the first couple were fine but the third destroyed their memory and Wolverine wasn’t much cop, so I was intrigued to see how this year’s X-Men: First Class was going to stand up.
The build up to the movie was a bit hit and miss. They advertised a lot and had a good trailer but their use of photoshop in their poster and billboard campaign was pretty shocking. Characters looking into the middle distance, pasted into the background, why didn’t they just get a good photo shoot on the go? Is it really that hard?
Anyway, the film focuses on the series’ two main characters, Professor X and Magneto, as they grow up as mutants and how they come to meet one another. All in all, I really enjoyed it, it’s the best X-Men movie so far, though that really isn’t saying a heck of a lot.
I think I enjoyed it mostly because of the two main characters. Charles Xavier, played by James McAvoy, is portrayed well and Erik Lehnsherr, played by Michael Fassbender is absolutely brilliant. Magneto is the best character of the lot, probably because he’s got the most depth to him, as most baddies do; having the best power helps a fair bit too.
But he isn’t a baddie in this movie, well largely at least. The movie tells the story of how Erik became Magneto and how he ended up choosing the opposite path to Charles. It’s pretty much what you want from a superhero film, good action, strong characters (okay two strong characters) and a good story; a rarity for recent superhero films.
Charles is much more of a lovable rascal in this movie, wooing the ladies and drinking heavily as he lives the student lifestyle in London. A far cry from Patrick Stewart's Proffessor X but this isn’t a problem, it’s actually good to see him like this while Magneto goes through years of emotional trauma.
The good thing about this movie, and I’m not sure it’s intentional, is the way you don’t root for the good guys. Well at least I didn’t. As the movie goes on I just kept on thinking the same as Magneto, he’s right about everything, Charles is wrong in his peacekeeping ways! The humans are idiots, they see the mutants as a threat and will try to eliminate them but Charles wont see this and wants to be a good moral citizen and all that rubbish. The humans even try to blow them all up with missiles and he still wont side with Magneto!
He’s too much of a shining example, I don’t care how much you want peace, if someone shoots hundreds of missiles at you after you save their asses then I’m afraid it’s no more mister nice guy. But no, Charles’ moral compass is too great and he cannot side with his friend Magneto.
Speaking of his moral compass though, there is a bit at the end where he’s with the FBI agent who’s helped him and she tells him she won’t tell anyone where the mutants are. They kiss and then it shoots to a boardroom and it appears she’s had her memory wiped. So Charles sneaks in a cheeky kiss and who knows what else and then wipes her memory!? Wow way to pick and choose your morals there Charlie!
Unfortunately though this movie isn’t all good. The main issue with it is the poor selection of the other characters. They’re X-Men, they’re all supposed to have great depth and character but instead we’re given some of the most dull and boring characters ever seen in an X-Men movie, now THAT is saying a lot!
There’s plenty of them, trouble is none of them are any good. Kevin Bacon plays the villain, an ex-Nazi mutant with the power to manipulate energy. There are these helper mutants who Charles wants to train up and fight for him: a ginger kid who can scream really loud and who’s nowhere near as likeable as Ron Weasley; a bloke called Darwin who can adapt to his surrounding for no real reason other than to die in an interesting way; Havok who has a good power but gets little use out of it and I’m struggling to think of any lines from him; and then there’s Angel, who is possibly the worst X-Men character to ever grace the silver screen. She’s just awful, maybe it’s the terrible acting but as a character she was so weak I could faintly hear Vinnie Jones yelling out “AM DA JUGGANAWT!” all over again. She’s essentially a butterfly, that’s her power, for some reason she can spit fire too which only serves as a poor plot device, I just wish she wasn’t in it. If only she’d just die after a day like a butterfly would.
Right up there alongside her though is Emma Stone played by January Jones of Unknown fame (couldn‘t stop thinking of Liam Neeson shouting Liz every time I saw her). This character is horrible, in fact she’s probably worse than Angel simply because she’s supposed to be a main character! She’s one of Kevin Bacon’s goons essentially and her power is the same as Charles’s: she’s a telepath who can block other telepaths by turning her skin into diamond. The issue here is that she’s so completely void of any emotion whatsoever, her voice is totally monotone, she displays no facial expression to the point that even being strangled by Magneto makes her simple say 'meh'. I don’t know if it’s the actor or the direction, but whatever it is her character is dire!
The other henchmen don’t offer much either. The teleporting Azazel has little to say although he does kill people in a more imaginative way than most other Marvel films. The other henchman can manipulate wind, again for plot devise purposes only and his solitary line is “argh!” when a loud screech flies down his headset.
And Beast! What’d they do to you Beast? Oh it’s horrible! They’ve ruined Beast in this movie! One of the best characters in the X-Men franchise is not done any justice at all. He’s played by the kid from About a Boy, and to be fair it’s not his fault, the character is just…weak. His power is obviously being a beast, he has deformed feet that allow him to gain strength and power, but he hates his deformity and wants to get rid of it. He devises a concoction to make his feet normal again, something he’s been working on for a while, but hang on, why does he think that he’ll still have his powers if he no longer has the feet, that’s kind of essential to his power isn’t it?
This brings me quite nicely onto plot holes, of which there are many. After the movie me and my brother discussed at length the X-Men movie franchise. Now, it’s been a while since I’ve seen the others, but this movie doesn’t match up to them at all. For example Wolverine is working as a lumberjack in this movie I think, so that would mean this movie is going on at that stage of his life as we saw in Wolverine. But First Class occurs during the Cuban missile crisis which was before the Vietnam war in which Wolverine and Sabretooth fought alongside each other before Wolverine left his brother and pitched up as a lumberjack. I’m totally lost on that one.
And isn’t Havok supposed to be Cyclops’ younger brother? He’s done that pretty well considering Cyclops isn’t even born during this movie. Also Charles is shot at the end which in my opinion was a little forced and unnecessary, but regardless from this moment on he is paralysed, however in the other movies he’s depicted as much older and walking. I knew they shouldn’t have had him get paralysed in this one, they should’ve waited for the inevitable sequel. I did find it amusing that they pretty much all chose teams like kids on a playground while Charles is lay on the floor in agony. Will someone get this poor man to a hospital!?
So with all that in mind I’m wondering whether or not this is a rehash of the franchise or a prequel? I think it should start over using this as the first one, keep the originals but just start over and make it better. X-Men: First Class shows real promise for a series that hasn’t been too good at keeping its past promises.
It’s the best X-Men movie by a way, and it’s the best Marvel movie since, well, Spiderman 2. Here’s hoping Marvel’s THIRD addition to 2011, Captain America, can continue building on this success. Either way, make a sequel to First Class, as long as it has Magneto it should be alright. Then again I said that about The Last Stand…
Final Verdict: 4 Stars. A movie the X-Men franchise deserves. Some very weak characters but a massive improvement nonetheless.
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