X-Men: First Class

Before becoming enemies Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr were allies and good friends. That is till they realized that their views on human-mutant relations were so inherently different that they could no longer work together. You don't need to be a fanboy to know this. Anyone who has seen the previous movies know just by watching, which any decent screenwriter will tell you is the objective, show don’t tell. However the producers decided this was neither clear enough nor a completely profitable explanation. So they have given us the back story to all of the questions no one ever asked. And you still think that the World War Three was avoided through diplomacy during a very tense thirteen days. Pssh.

Matthew Vaughn takes the helm on this version of X-men. Bryan Singer returns to help with the story and while he was offered the directing chair had to turn it down due to other commitments (Jack the Giant Killer). It would have been nice to see what he could do with the story. The first two movies helped propel superheros from men in tights to stories that could crossover into mass appeal. Expectations were high for Vaughn who did good work with ‘Kick Ass’ if you’re into watching a 12-year-old swear like a sailor and get the shit kicked out of her, and who isn’t. With all of these elements and a high rating on rotten tomatoes it seemed the series was making a return to what we loved. What we got instead was a movie that seemed over run with characters, nostalgia, and alienated minority metaphors.

The movie opens with both men as children feeling isolated, not knowing there are more out there just like them. That changes very quickly as Vaughn likes working with as many characters as he can, that way if he feels that the action is moving too slowly he can just switch over to another story. Besides Mystique, who is overshadowed by her leading men, most of the other recruits are one note characters that you could probably understand as soon as you hear their mutant name. Meanwhile Kevin Bacon takes on the role of super villain Sebastian Shaw trying to rid the world of the dominant species and make room for the next evolution of mankind. He takes up most of the screen time for the opposition force, well besides January Jones playing the role of Emma Frost, her casting in Mad Man as the empty porcelain doll housewife Betty Draper is now completely clear. I would have liked to see more of, or at the very least one line of dialogue, from Bacon’s henchmen Azazel and Riptide as they have some bad ass scenes. There are so many characters that come in and out of the movie that it is hard to keep track of who and where they are, and even tougher to feel any level of connection as a member of the audience.

The movie isn't all bad; in fact there are moments that are downright enjoyable. A big part of that are James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender performances. When they are allowed a little wiggle room to riff off each other it seems like there is great potential for the movie. Even in some of the goofier scenes, they make it work. I mean they can't work miracles, forcing McAvoy to put his fingers to his head to show that he is using his telekinetic powers still looks silly and something Patrick Stewart didn't have to put up with. The scenes of them together debating competing philosophies were wonderful, but even when the scene or music, which was so often too cheesy for its own good, called for something ridiculous the two men still had enough charm for the scene to not seem out of place.

The most frustrating part of the movie was trying to follow all of the rules that prequels feel the need to follow: trying to explain everything. When the movie was allowed to just be, and tell its story it was much more enjoyable then when the writers needed to show why Beast was blue. But at the same time, I'm sure there were plenty of fan boys mad that we didn't see Magneto and Charles build Cerebro themselves. So that is a tough line to walk, and it seems the producers were looking to appeal to fans of the X-men more than a wider audience so questions needed answers. I suppose this desire for more original story really goes back to the last paragraph and my enjoyment of seeing these two actors together. I would have loved to see the movie deal more with these two competing philosophies than the creation of the X-men, but I didn't write the script so I'll have to take what I can get.

Don't mistake all the criticism to think that I didn't enjoy the movie; it was fun and a good popcorn flick. Maybe I just had this movie on a pedestal from all the high expectations I had going in. There wasn't too much to laugh about in the previous ones, which I enjoyed in the originals, or at least the laughs that were to be had all fit the characters who were delivering them. There are a couple very funny scenes, including a great cameo and a well placed F-bomb but 'First class' gets a little too campy to be taken seriously. C-