X-Men: First Class, 2011.
Directed by Matthew Vaughn.
Starring James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Kevin Bacon, January Jones, Rose Byrne, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Lucas Till, Zoë Kravitz, Álex González, Caleb Landry Jones, Jason Flemyng, Oliver Platt and Ray Wise.
SYNOPSIS:
In their efforts to prevent Armageddon, a grave rift emerges between close friends Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Erik Lensherr (Michael Fassbender) that will ultimately pave the way for war between the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Mutants.
Matthew Vaughn made quite an impression last year with the hugely entertaining Kick-Ass and now he looks to breathe new life into the X-Men franchise with X-Men: First Class, a 1960s-set prequel that arrives in cinemas on the back of a sea of glowing reviews. Now it’s fair to say that the publicity campaign for First Class didn’t get off to the best of starts but Fox seemed to pull things round with some pretty impressive trailers, and with all the hype the film has been generating this past week I was full of anticipation for something extra special. Sadly, that’s not quite what I ended up with and if I’m being brutally honest, I can’t see what all the fuss is about.
Now before anyone jumps on my back, I’m not saying that First Class is a bad film. Far from it. It’s a vast improvement over the utterly lacklustre X-Men Origins: Wolverine and any fears I’d had over the casting choices (James McAvoy, I’m talking to you) were completely misplaced. In fact, the whole cast are solid, there’s plenty of exciting action set-pieces, just the right amount of humour and a decent enough story. And, given the insane turnaround time, Matthew Vaughn and company have pulled off a remarkable achievement. But man, there’s been so much Kleenex shed over First Class this week that I guess all those masturbatory reviews really had me hoping for that little bit more.
First Class begins in exactly the same fashion as Bryan Singer’s opening installment did, with a young Erik Lensherr discovering his powers of magnetism in the horrific confines of a Nazi concentration camp. After witnessing the brutal murder of his mother at the hands of Klaus Schmidt, a.k.a. Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon), the adult Erik (Michael Fassbender) devotes his life to avenging her death. This brings him into contact with Charles Xavier (James McAvoy), a telepathic mutant working with C.I.A. agent Moira MacTaggart to prevent Shaw from conspiring to start a nuclear war between the United States and Russia. The pair soon spark up a friendship as they work together to create a team capable of combating the energy-absorbing Shaw and his villainous crew of super-powered mutants, only for their conflicting ideologies to ultimately put them at odds with one another.
The main problem for me with X-Men: First Class is that, much like Brett Ratner’s X-Men: The Last Stand, the filmmakers have tried to cram as much as possible into the script and not only does this cause the film to skip from one place to the next for much of its running time, but it also leaves quite a few of the characters sorely underdeveloped. Apart from Professor X, Magneto, Shaw, Emma Frost (January Jones) and Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), the remaining mutants don’t get too much of a look in. While it’s Magneto’s story that drives the film (with Fassbender delivering a fine performance), it is a shame that we didn’t get to see more of the eponymous ‘first class’, especially with characters such as Hank McCoy (Nicholas Hoult) having so much potential to explore.
As I said earlier, X-Men: First Class is infinitely better than Gavin Hood’s previous effort and a worthy installment in the X-Men franchise, but it’s not as good as X2: X-Men United (or Kick-Ass, for that matter) and I can’t say I enjoyed it any more than I did Thor. Matthew Vaughn has been peddling the ‘Batman Begins’ line as to his inspiration for the film, and he’s probably right in that the sequel could be so much better. I’ll certainly be back for it, although next time I won’t bother reading any of the early reviews.
Movie Review Archive
Originally published June 2, 2011. Updated April 12, 2018.
