 Tagline: The story begins X-Men: First Class is the thrilling, eye-opening chapter you've been waiting for... Witness the beginning of the X-Men Universe. Before Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr took the names Professor X and Magneto, they were two young men discovering their superhuman powers for the first time, working together in a desperate attempt to stop the Hellfire Club and a global nuclear war. Storyline: Before Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr took the names Professor X and Magneto, they were two young men discovering their powers for the first time. Before they were archenemies, they were closest of friends, working together, with other Mutants (some familiar, some new), to stop the greatest threat the world has ever known. In the process, a rift between them opened, which began the eternal war between Magneto's Brotherhood and Professor X's X-MEN. Written by Twentieth Century Fox Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Casey Broadwater, September 9, 2011 -- Superhero movies are big business and tricky business; not only are they expected to rake in tons of cash for the studios, but to do so, they also need to somehow cater to both the I-just-wants-to-see-stuffs-get-blown-up mentality of the casual action movie fan and the obsessive, continuity-checking nitpicking of hardcore comic book readers. That's a tough balance to strike. Appeal to the lowest common denominator and the most rabid geeks will revolt; get too detailed and those just looking for a cool place to spend a summer afternoon will be overwhelmed with off- puttingly esoteric lore. Of course, there's also the possibility that the movie just won't be any good, regardless, and that's what happened with the last two X-Men films. After the over-the-top mutant gluttony of X-Men: The Last Stand and the searing disappointment that was X- Men Origins: Wolverine, Marvel fanatics and the moviegoing public alike were understandably wary of yet another X-Men outing, which partially explains why First Class—a prequel and, effectively, a franchise reboot—got such a relatively lukewarm reception at the box office. But I think the film got a tough break. While it's not nearly as gripping as The Dark Knight, and not half as fun as Iron Man, First Class is an entertaining origin story that benefits from a 1960s setting that gives it the vibe of Mad Men the and style of an early James Bond picture. But before we get to the swinging '60s we have to go back a bit further to a concentration camp in Poland, 1944, where evil Nazi scientist Dr. Schmidt (Kevin Bacon) discovers and exploits the telekinetic powers of a young Jew, Erik Lensherr, who sees his mother shot by Schmidt and erupts in a fit of metal-rending rage. Meanwhile, at a mansion in upstate New York, tween-aged telepath Charles Xavier discovers a blue-scaled shape- shifter named Raven rummaging in the kitchen for food and—without consulting his parents—invites her to join the family, happy to have found a friend who's similarly "different." Eighteen years later and looking for revenge, adult Erik (Michael Fassbender, who also played a Nazi hunter in Inglourious Basterds) is on the trail of Dr. Schmidt—now called Sebastian Shaw—who has since developed a faultless American accent, actually looks younger than he did in '44, and has for a moll the appropriately named Emma Frost (January Jones), a telepathic ice-queen who's able to encase her body in glittery diamonds. (Busty and bombshell blond, she's the film's equivalent of a Bond villainess.) Shaw, who has the ability to absorb energy and disperse it at will, has been convincing American and Russian diplomats to strategically up their missile defenses—perhaps forcibly manipulating is a better phrase—and his end-game is all-out nuclear war, which would destroy humanity, leaving the evolved and "superior" mutant race to take over the planet. Also trying to track him down is CIA agent Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne), who conscripts Xavier (James McAvoy)—now a dandy-ish professor of genetics—and his adopted sister (Jennifer Lawrence) to aid in the search. Eventually, Erik gets pulled into this CIA circle as well, and when he meets Xavier, in-the-know comic book connoisseurs will nod and hopefully smile, aware that these two men will become fast friends and— one day, inevitably—mortal enemies. With just about any prequel, the audience already has a grasp on what will happen, so the challenge of the filmmakers is to give compelling whys and hows. We know Xavier ends up in a wheelchair. We know he founds a school for gifted mutants. We know he and Erik— soon to be christened "Magneto"—will have a falling out based on their mutually incompatible philosophies for mutant and human coexistence. First Class takes us there, with a story that co-opts the Cold War drama of the Cuban Missile Crisis for an adventure in mutant-infused alternate history. To save the world from nuclear destruction, Erik and Xavier round up and train the "first class" of superlative mutant students, from a flying burlesque dancer named Angel (Zoe Kravitz) and a taxi driver who ran rapidly adapt to survive any environment—he goes by "Darwin," obviously—to a red-headed Ron Weasley look-a-like with ultra-powerful vocal cords and the prehensile-footed Dr. Hank McCoy (Nicholas Hoult), who will ultimately become the blue-furred Beast played by Kelsey Grammer in the previous movies. Most of these subsidiary mutants get short-shrifted in the character development department—they're really just here to use their powers in a pinch or provide the impetus for certain plot turns—but the film makes up for this with the evocatively portrayed relationship between Xavier and Erik, which goes beyond brotherly, making it all the more affecting when they part ways. The credit goes less to the credited screenwriters—of which there were, count 'em, six—and more to James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender, two actors who have both been doing brilliant work recently. (Fassbender in particular. If you've yet to see Hunger or Fishtank or the new Jane Eyre, track them down. All three are wonderful.) McAvoy initially comes across like a young Richard Dawkins, all scientific swagger—nerdishly charming while trying to bed Oxford co-eds by commenting on their "groovy" genetic mutations—but as the film progresses he begins to take on more of the gravity of Patrick Stewert, who plays an older version of Xavier in the other films. And I'm not going to avoid it; Fassbender is positively magnetic as Magneto, the Holocaust survivor who worries that a similar culling will take place with the newly out-of-the- closet mutants, who are already being labeled as freaks and aberrations. As always in X-Men, the racial/sexual orientation discrimination sub-text isn't very sub. There's even a scene where Dr. Hank McCoy replies, "You didn't ask, so I didn't tell," when his boss questions him on why he didn't let anyone know he was a mutant. The metaphor gets to be eye-rollingly obvious in places, but I haven't notice any anti-gay rights activists boycotting the film, so hey, maybe it's still flying over a few heads. But are there explosions, you ask? Absolutely. Director Matthew Vaughn—the guy behind last year's hilarious and brutal Kick-Ass—gets the comic book action elements right, vacillating between intimate fight scenes and epic set piece battles. The big finale has the amassed navies of the U.S. and Russia squaring off with itchy trigger fingers while Professor X's mutants swoop in on a pimped out SR-71 to put an end to Shaw's manufactured missile crisis. Who'd've thought throwing even more superpowers into the mix would be so good for the Cold War? X-Men: First Class was definitely better than I expected, and although it's not a perfect comic book film, it's miles and miles beyond the last two entries in the franchise. So yes, First Class is a return to form, one that should leave all but the most persnickety and discriminating Marvel fans satisfied. As you'd hope, the film looks and sounds fantastic on Blu-ray, and the disc comes with some great special features, including an hour-long making-of documentary. Recommended! (Based on Comic Book) [CSW] -4- A user summed it up with "Grand-Scale Storytelling Mixed with Superb Action" and it was. I really liked this movie which seemed to have the right mixture of everything. Although comic book based movie generally fail to impress me, this one did. I have added this one to my collection. [V4.5-A4.5] MPEG-4 AVC - D-Box 9.0/10 - Perfect except it was a little too muted, probably for the PG-13 audience. Cast Notes: James McAvoy (Charles Xavier), Laurence Belcher (Charles Xavier [12 Years]), Michael Fassbender (Erik Lehnsherr / Magneto), Bill Milner (Young Erik), Kevin Bacon (Sebastian Shaw), Rose Byrne (Moira MacTaggert), Jennifer Lawrence (Raven / Mystique), Beth Goddard (Mrs. Xavier / Mystique), Morgan Lily (Young Raven [10 yrs]), Oliver Platt (The Man in Black), Álex González (Janos Quested / Riptide), Jason Flemyng (Azazel), Zoë Kravitz (Angel Salvadore), January Jones (Emma Frost), Nicholas Hoult (Hank McCoy / Beast). IMDb Rating (10/09/11): 7.9/10 from 111,115 users
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