With its retro groove and a plot that uses the Cuban Missile Crisis as a backdrop, X-Men: First Class adds new zest to the wilted X-Men franchise. Matthew Vaughan, director of Layer Cake and Kick-Ass, brings a youthful zing to the fifth X-Men movie by going back to the era that created the characters.
Vaughan’s take on the material feels as fresh as today’s news, but it draws on the golden age of Marvel comics. It was just one year after the Cuban Missile Crisis that Stan Lee first introduced the X-Men to the world. The mutated superheroes and supervillains that populate the comic book are, as one character in the film remarks, children of the atom.
X-Men: First Class lets you witness their birth. The film introduces Professor X — the psychic who will later become the wheelchair-bound leader of the X-Men — and his nemesis Magneto as young men who have yet to embark on their decades-long clash of wills and ideologies.
The film pulls off one of the trickiest of narrative stunts: making you care about how a story unfolds when you already know how it will end. The destination may be known, but the journey there offers up more than a few surprises.
In the movie, we meet Charles Xavier as an Oxford professor who is roped into helping the CIA to fight a plot to spark a nuclear war. Holocaust survivor Erik, who will later become Magneto, is on the trail of the Nazi war criminal who killed his mother in a concentration camp. When their paths cross, Charles and Erik form an uneasy alliance against their mutual enemy.
It’s the acting from a talented young cast that helps to lift X-Men: First Class above many other superhero films. James McAvoy (seen in The Last King of Scotland) as Charles and Michael Fassbender (the most recent version of Jane Eyre) as Erik bring new dimensions to the characters, while channelling the essence of the iconic performances by Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen.
They have terrific chemistry as brothers in arms drawn together by mutual respect and as fierce rivals that constantly spark against each other. One the one side is Charles, the serene idealist who believes that humans and mutants with superpowers can live in peace; on the other, the damaged but powerful Erik who sees war between the races as inevitable.
As suave and swinging as McAvoy’s Charles is, one can see his character growing into Stewart’s serious-minded, monk-like Professor X. Fassbender manages to get the audience to believe that there may be a shot at redemption for the tortured and vengeful Erik, but we can also see in him the seeds of the merciless villain Magneto.
The supporting cast is also excellent. Jennifer Lawrence, nominated for an Oscar in Winter’s Bone, brings vulnerability to the young Mystique. January Jones as the icy Emma Frost also stands out. Kevin Bacon is an appropriately cold and ruthless villain, though he deserved a little more to work with.
Vaughan keeps things moving at a cracking pace — no mean feat in a film as stocked up with characters as X-Men: First Class. Wisely, he keeps most of the focus on the relationship between Charles and Erik, but he is also gives the other mutants enough space to show off their powers and develop their own story arcs.
X-Men: First Class focuses as much on story and character as it does on action. Thankfully, there’s no gratuitous 3D in the film, which borrows heavily from early Bond films for its look. The CGI is applied sparingly to enhance rather than overwhelm the events on screen. There’s action throughout, of course, but Vaughan saves most of his fireworks for an explosive and truly exciting finale. Some of the CGI is a little shaky, but not so much that it is distracting.
There’s always the possibility that this sort of globetrotting Cold War caper will evoke the spirit of Austin Powers rather than Sean Connery’s James Bond, a danger the film nimbly averts. The period detail in X-Men: First Class is wryly observed, yet subtle, especially the costumes.
X-Men: First Class trailer (via YouTube):
Slightly more serious in tone than the recent Thor, X-Men: First Class pauses to think about subjects such as tolerance and prejudice in between its action set pieces. But it’s also playful and mischievous. The 1960s vibe makes for a welcome change from the black leather angst of many more recent superhero flicks.
X-Men: First Class takes some massive liberties with the comic book series that inspired it, which will probably infuriate some comic book nerds. But for everyone else, this is perfect summer blockbuster entertainment. It’s a pleasant surprise after the two last films in the franchise were such duds. — Lance Harris, TechCentral
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