X-Men: First Class (2011): C

Refreshing the franchise by returning to its ‘60s genesis, X-Men: First Class details the formation of Marvel’s mutant superhero team, created under the auspices of benevolent telepath Professor Xavier (James McAvoy) and militaristic metal-controlling Erik Lehnsherr, aka Magneto (Michael Fassbender). Director Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass) dully rehashes Magneto’s concentration camp origins from the first X-Men in order to provide him with vengeful motivation against Nazi-doctor-turned-Cuban Missile Crisis-instigator Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon). It’s a plot crux that, like Vaughn’s assemble-the-team split-screen montages and CG centerpieces, is serviceable but seems more dutiful than dynamic, and is muddled by all sorts of random false notes, including Xavier and shape-shifting Mystique’s (Jennifer Lawrence) continuity-challenging close relationship. As with the material’s allegorical subtext about minorities, Professor X and Magneto’s Martin Luther King Jr.-Malcolm X relationship feels old hat, and isn’t helped by the director’s sleek retro set decoration and costume design. And though preaching progressiveness in the face of intolerance, the film subscribes to the era’s objectifying sexism by having Mystique, human CIA agent Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne) and mindreading Emma Frost (January Jones) regularly flash cleavage and/or appear in states of minimal dress. Fassbender exudes the right blend of cold pragmatism and burning fury to make Magneto a compelling center of attention. So much so, in fact, that – with Xavier a noble bore, the young X-Men a pitifully second-rate bunch (Banshee and Havoc? Really?), and his mutant and human adversaries all one-note evil – it’s hard not to root for Magneto, driven by a belief in next-gen Darwinian evolution at all costs, to eventually eradicate most of this period-piece reboot’s dullards.

Comments

[Portugal]

The film was very good, they used opening scene from X-Men to try to link it in the film franchise. They also used a lot of key phases from the other films. The troubling part is they trashed the story timeline of the other X-men movies like in X-Men Wolverine you saw Prof. X walking, older, & bald getting the captive mutants on the helicopter then Emma Frost is only a teenager in Wolverine. Also in X-men, Prof. X told Wolverine Magneto and him built cerebro. In this movie they credit, Beast! Finally, you can leave when the credits start because they broke Marvel tradition, no extra side at the end. One humorous scene for the veterans of the other X-men movies, is when Magneto & Prof. X go to recruit Logan, there reactions to him are based on Magneto able to pickup on the metal on his bones & Prof. X able to read his mind.