X-men: First Class
Way back in 2003 I remember watching X-2 with a friend and at the end of the movie when the Phoenix shadow was seen under the lake, he said excitedly to me while pointing at the screen "That's the Phoenix! The next movie is going to be awesome!" I remember that incident clearly because at the time I believed him wholeheartedly. With his level of excitement at the advent of this Phoenix character how could he be wrong? Then 2006 rolled around and the third movie came out with Brett Ratner, the director best known for the Rush Hour films, at the helm rather than Brian Singer, who directed the previous films.
"X-men: The Last Stand" (X-3) was a cinematic mess. The movie was too ambitious and was just sloppily done. They even committed one of the greatest blunders in cinematic history (well it wasn't that bad but to every comic book fan I have come across it may as well have been), they decided to kill cyclops off screen. Although the movie did rake in a good amount of money, 234.2mil according to rottentomatoes, fans had completely lost faith in the series. They made another X-men movie focusing on the beloved Wolverine in 2009 titled "X-men Origins: Wolverine." If it was even possible the film was even more blasphemous to comic book readers with their take on Deadpool, another marvel character.
So with the franchise on the rocks after 2 bad movies there was only one logical step; REBOOT! Hollywood today loves rebooting series and just movies in general but that is a rant for another time. So in June of 2011 "X-men: First Class" was released. It gave the entire X-men cast a more youthful appearance and strove to be a sort of origin story for the X-men. But in reality it is more a retelling of the X-men because it does stray very far from the comic books.
The movie mainly takes place around the time of the Cuban missile crisis. But there are flashback type sequences peppered in. The main villain Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) is trying to start a war between the US and the Soviet Union. Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Erik Lehnsheer better known as Magneto (Michael Fassbender) team up with the CIA to stop the threat. In the process other mutants are found using an early version of the cerebral amplifier, Cerebro. And thus the X-men are formed. The movie shows the young mutants training and mastering their abilities, which eventually culminates in a big showdown with Shaw and his mutants.
The plot of the movie is not going to win it any awards but I would be lying if I said it wasn't throughly entertaining. The story was much deeper than you would expect out of a summer blockbuster. Each of the main characters were characterized quite well. Each had distinct personalities and reasons for doing what they did. This may sound stupid to say but it was nice to see the characters acting in character and not doing things just for the sake of plot. Although I can't say the same about the bit characters, who were basically put on the back burner. They did things and the audience is just supposed to accept it because the movie tells us nothing else about them.
I went into this movie knowing very little about the origins of the X-men. I have watched the entire animated series that aired back in 1992 on Fox. But I would not call myself an expert. I really enjoyed the movie and believed its tale as the true origin story since it did flow quite nicely with the mythos that I knew. But when I got around to looking into the characters and the story I found out that very little was actually faithful to the comics. Sebastian Shaw never met Lehnsheer as a child. Professor Xavier was never able to walk. Just to name a few things. But the point is that this movie is a re-imagining of the X-men rather than a faithful comic book adaptation. However if you are a casual X-men fan and not a diehard, own every X-men comic type fan then you will enjoy the movie. Everything that happens feels very plausible and natural in the grand scheme of the X-men universe even though it is not the way things transpired in the comics.
The biggest surprise of the movie for me was James McAvoy. When I first heard he was going to be Professor X I had my doubts. I could only picture McAvoy as the cocky protagonist, Wesley, from "Wanted." But he really wowed me as Professor Xavier. He was cocky and arrogant but endearing at the same time. As the movie progressed he slowly lost his cockiness and arrogance. Besides McAvoy the other performances were sub par. There was a lot of over acting by many of the other cast members sometimes even making serious scenes come across as really cheesy. But I mean the cheesy dialogue didn't help either.
The one thing that drove me absolutely insane about the movie, aside from the sometimes cheesy dialogue, was Magneto's motivation. It is known that he was a holocaust survivor and the beginning of the movie even shows that. The viewer is quickly able to infer that Magneto is afraid mutants will be treated like the Jews in Nazi Germany when they are revealed to the public. That being the reason he goes against Professor Xavier, who has no qualms about revealing mutants to the world. In the movie there are countless times when Magneto keeps mentioning his motivation and it gets condescending. I mean the average moviegoer should be able to catch this based solely on the beginning scene and the one passing mention. If they can't they probably don't deserve to even know. There is no reason to forcefully keep trying to spoon feed the information. Directors and screenwriters need to stop spoon feeding the audience; they need to let the audience infer things and think a little bit.
I think "X-men: First Class" was an entertaining movie and a well done re-imagining of a long running comic book series. As a summer blockbuster there is nothing wrong with it. Essentially if anyone complains the directors or writers could easily just pass it off as an alternate universe almost like the 616 universe and the ultimate universe (if you don't know what that means just please excuse my nerd talk. I need to say something like this to maintain my dwindling nerd cred.) But honestly I think you should definitely go out and see this movie if you like superhero movies or just want a good popcorn movie. It's good fun.
"X-men: The Last Stand" (X-3) was a cinematic mess. The movie was too ambitious and was just sloppily done. They even committed one of the greatest blunders in cinematic history (well it wasn't that bad but to every comic book fan I have come across it may as well have been), they decided to kill cyclops off screen. Although the movie did rake in a good amount of money, 234.2mil according to rottentomatoes, fans had completely lost faith in the series. They made another X-men movie focusing on the beloved Wolverine in 2009 titled "X-men Origins: Wolverine." If it was even possible the film was even more blasphemous to comic book readers with their take on Deadpool, another marvel character.
So with the franchise on the rocks after 2 bad movies there was only one logical step; REBOOT! Hollywood today loves rebooting series and just movies in general but that is a rant for another time. So in June of 2011 "X-men: First Class" was released. It gave the entire X-men cast a more youthful appearance and strove to be a sort of origin story for the X-men. But in reality it is more a retelling of the X-men because it does stray very far from the comic books.
The movie mainly takes place around the time of the Cuban missile crisis. But there are flashback type sequences peppered in. The main villain Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) is trying to start a war between the US and the Soviet Union. Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Erik Lehnsheer better known as Magneto (Michael Fassbender) team up with the CIA to stop the threat. In the process other mutants are found using an early version of the cerebral amplifier, Cerebro. And thus the X-men are formed. The movie shows the young mutants training and mastering their abilities, which eventually culminates in a big showdown with Shaw and his mutants.
The plot of the movie is not going to win it any awards but I would be lying if I said it wasn't throughly entertaining. The story was much deeper than you would expect out of a summer blockbuster. Each of the main characters were characterized quite well. Each had distinct personalities and reasons for doing what they did. This may sound stupid to say but it was nice to see the characters acting in character and not doing things just for the sake of plot. Although I can't say the same about the bit characters, who were basically put on the back burner. They did things and the audience is just supposed to accept it because the movie tells us nothing else about them.
I went into this movie knowing very little about the origins of the X-men. I have watched the entire animated series that aired back in 1992 on Fox. But I would not call myself an expert. I really enjoyed the movie and believed its tale as the true origin story since it did flow quite nicely with the mythos that I knew. But when I got around to looking into the characters and the story I found out that very little was actually faithful to the comics. Sebastian Shaw never met Lehnsheer as a child. Professor Xavier was never able to walk. Just to name a few things. But the point is that this movie is a re-imagining of the X-men rather than a faithful comic book adaptation. However if you are a casual X-men fan and not a diehard, own every X-men comic type fan then you will enjoy the movie. Everything that happens feels very plausible and natural in the grand scheme of the X-men universe even though it is not the way things transpired in the comics.
The biggest surprise of the movie for me was James McAvoy. When I first heard he was going to be Professor X I had my doubts. I could only picture McAvoy as the cocky protagonist, Wesley, from "Wanted." But he really wowed me as Professor Xavier. He was cocky and arrogant but endearing at the same time. As the movie progressed he slowly lost his cockiness and arrogance. Besides McAvoy the other performances were sub par. There was a lot of over acting by many of the other cast members sometimes even making serious scenes come across as really cheesy. But I mean the cheesy dialogue didn't help either.
The one thing that drove me absolutely insane about the movie, aside from the sometimes cheesy dialogue, was Magneto's motivation. It is known that he was a holocaust survivor and the beginning of the movie even shows that. The viewer is quickly able to infer that Magneto is afraid mutants will be treated like the Jews in Nazi Germany when they are revealed to the public. That being the reason he goes against Professor Xavier, who has no qualms about revealing mutants to the world. In the movie there are countless times when Magneto keeps mentioning his motivation and it gets condescending. I mean the average moviegoer should be able to catch this based solely on the beginning scene and the one passing mention. If they can't they probably don't deserve to even know. There is no reason to forcefully keep trying to spoon feed the information. Directors and screenwriters need to stop spoon feeding the audience; they need to let the audience infer things and think a little bit.
I think "X-men: First Class" was an entertaining movie and a well done re-imagining of a long running comic book series. As a summer blockbuster there is nothing wrong with it. Essentially if anyone complains the directors or writers could easily just pass it off as an alternate universe almost like the 616 universe and the ultimate universe (if you don't know what that means just please excuse my nerd talk. I need to say something like this to maintain my dwindling nerd cred.) But honestly I think you should definitely go out and see this movie if you like superhero movies or just want a good popcorn movie. It's good fun.
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