One thing you can always count on from an X-Men movie is that you will leave the theater wishing you had superpowers and/or trying to move things with your mind. X-Men: First Class is no exception. So go ahead and get out that box of pencils or line up your mugs, but I’ll tell you from experience, don’t count on being able to move them.
X-men: First Class tells the story of Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender) before they were Professor X and Magneto, and about how the two found each other, became bestest friends, saved the world, became enemies, and then started their own separate groups for mutants. In addition to the established characters, there were a few new mutants not represented in any of the other X-Men films, so despite knowing that a few key players survive the movie you’re mostly kept guessing as to what will happen to the rest.
This was a great X-Men film. Every scene covered key plot points, and both McAvoy and Fassbender did a great job stepping into the shoes of two well-known characters previously portrayed by such well-known actors.
Whenever there was action, it looked great, and flowed smoothly. The X-men were really depicted as a team of superheroes instead of a group of individuals, they really seemed to fight together. First Class definitely focused on story over action, but kept enough peppered throughout the film to keep you from feeling bogged down.
Time Until Action Starts: ~ 7 minutes
Baddies: Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon)
Best Line: “Go f*** yourselves.”
Best Explosion: Shaw absorbed a bunch of energy and then released it as he stomped the ground, releasing a huge, subterranean explosion that rocked outwards like a tidal wave of flames, killing a group of hapless soldiers.
Action Rating: 2 ½ Xs, out of 5.
This is the Action Flick Chick, and you’ve just been kicked in the ass!
The movie, if taken as a stand-alone production was indeed actually pretty good. The flaw is that even if you can accept the continued butchering of the X-men Cannon, this movie doesn’t even fit properly into the timeline of events established BY THE OTHER MOVIES. *headdesk*
Also, the title is extremely misleading… this isn’t the First Class, and they’re not X-men. This is the story of the group that lead to the founding of Xavier’s School and the creation of the X-men. The sequel could be the First Class.
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I don’t mind that they didn’t follow the cannon or even the other timelines. Just make a good movie. I am guessing they are looking at this as a chance to reboot the franchise.
it sux as all the other 3 movies
There were some good elements to this movie, but the rampant genderfail and racefail undermined what should have been a tight, two-part film series. Sad, too – I liked the kids, and McAvoy and Fassbender (McFassAvender?) were more than up to their respective tasks.
I TOTALLY believe that mutants from X-Men are superior to humans. It doesn’t mean he should wipe us all out though.
Just like I don’t believe that being human means we should wipe out the rest of the animal population.
Insane leap in logic on Magneto’s part.
X-Men: First Class is my favorite movie of the year so far because of how well it was written and for the cameos. Definitely alot better movie than the crap that was Thor.
Re:Daniel-
Well, there were a few things that actually earn Magneto’s stance. First of all, there was the anthropological justification that every time homo evolved, the newer, ‘better’ homo wiped out the previous homo until we got to sapien sapien. (admit it, you giggled all the way through that sentence…).
But then it was not so much his feeling of superiority (in the way it was Shaw’s) but rather his feeling that sapien sapien would not allow mutants to exist because they would see them as a threat, and being a holocaust survivor he believed that was human nature at its most naked, that when afraid was capable of immense cruelty that it would easily justify to itself. So [spoilers] when human kind confirms his deepest belief and the people they just saved from a nuclear war (including the people they were supposedly working for) by firing their missiles at them he is convinced that the only way for mutants to survive is by wiping out the last version of homo. Because we have wiped out animals that have posed the slightest threat to us, and a few that didn’t.
And the big missed beat for me was that part of the sexiness of Emma Frost wasn’t just that she dressed like a Victoria Secret model but that she was an evil mastermind/manipulator…without that she is really just kind of an object in the worst sense of it.
That and the Star Wars training sequence (you know, how Luke had only as much training in the force as it took to get to Alderon before he was able to use the Force to blow up the death star, the X-Men were trained in the time it took a cargo ship to get from Russia to Cuba which was enough time for Banshee to learn how to fly etc.) But honestly, I forgive most things like that for story.
I think this is one of the better X-Men movies. I know it doesn’t match the first 3 movies but I wasn’t concerned about it
@Kat I liked that line, too.
http://is.gd/XMEN1
i agree with your review. the movie rocked. it had the right amount of action/story and i still try to move stuff with my mind
Tend to agree with the butchering of the timeline – it distracted me some from enjoying it more. From what I heard it’s because this was Marvel the company rather than the Stan Lee version (hence no cameo).
Besides that – Kevin Bacon was a great bad guy and it had a great ’60’s style to it. The mutants were good, and cannot wait to see Fausbender in Haywire in Sept.