Synopsis:
Before they were Professor X and Magneto, they were young men discovering their mutations. While they work together as friends, with other mutants, striving to stop a global catastrophe, a rift develops between them.
X-Men: First Class is a welcome return to form for the X-Men Marvel franchise. Matthew Vaughn was a very good choice for directing. Kick-Ass was a great independent comic book film completed on a meagre budget and a logical next step was for him to be assigned a studio superhero film with a hefty budget to see if he could extract the same results. While the studio might not be as happy with the results (the box office has been less than overwhelming), fans of the comics and the movies certainly are. The Last Stand was a bit of shambles and after two successful and entertaining films it was a mistake not to have Bryan Singer do the third so bringing him in as producer here was a wise choice. A series prequel was absolutely the right way to go, and fits in well with the Wolverine origins story and the supposedly ongoing origin stories for other popular characters. First Class is a good all encompassing prequel. If there is a criticism though, it’s that it tries to do too much, especially for non-genre followers. The first 20-30 minutes are actually quite laborious while the scene is set and the back story is explained in words of one syllable.
The performances are pretty solid though. Many people were unsure about James McAvoy as the choice to play a young Charles Xavier, but in fact he has captured the same cool, calm and collected demeanour that Patrick Stewart emanated in the first two instalments and Michael Fassbender is superb as the young Magneto, playing the part with an always present, underlying malicious streak exactly as the character calls for.
Putting the obvious inaccuracies regarding mutations and phenotypes, and the errors in evolutionary theory aside, X-Men: First Class is a refreshing return to form and should ensure there are more to follow.
