In a movie franchise that spans over a decade, has cost over $700,000,000 and has earned a staggering $1, 656,473,495, the latest X-Men movies, First Class has found its way onto the big screen and word has it the series following the adventures of super-powered and mutated young people is only set to continue and grow over the coming years.
We are and always will be huge fans of the X-Men from our early days watching the cartoon series on Saturday mornings, slurping a bowl of cereal while wrapped in a duvet (for the record we still do this!) to rifling through dusty boxes in the hopes of finding a comic or two, when we first got the chance to see how Hollywood would interpret our heroes we were bowled over and fell straight in love. We’ve no regrets watching any of the movies, sure some have been better than others and that Wolverine spin-off could have been better but we have seen them all dozens of times and we’re not prepared to slate them anytime soon!
So when First Class was announced and pictures and trailers began to leak onto the internet our little mutant loving heart was in a tizzy, rumours had our heads spinning, Kevin Bacon signed on to play Gambit, Nazi conspiracies and all that we didn’t know what to believe. Thankfully we’ve now had the chance to sit down and scope the film for ourselves but before we begin tearing it to pieces we’d like to point out that we will NOT be ripping the film for inaccuracies on the Marvel timeline etc!
(Don’t expect any of these guys to be around except for Beast!)
First Class details the origins of the X-Men , set across different periods of time, from Germany in the 1940’s to the US and England in the 50’s and 60’s. In the beginning we’re introduced to Charles Xavier (James MacAvoy) and Erik Lensherr (Michael Fassbender), Xavier is a young boy with the ability to read minds, he awakens to find another young mutant in his kitchen, Raven Darkholme aka Mystique and Erik is a young Jewish boy with the ability to control magnetic waves and energy forced into a Nazi concentration camp. While in the camp Erik’s abilities are revealed to a Doctor Schmidt (Kevin Bacon) who recognises the impact genetic mutations are having on people, he forces the boy to move a coin or his mother will be shot, he fails to do so and the woman is murdered in front of her son. Flash forward and we see both men at another period in their lives, Xavier is studying in college while Erik continues on his quest to avenge his mother and hunt down the man responsible for her death.
Meanwhile a young CIA agent, Moira McTaggert (yes… we know!) is scouting out a new group known as the Hellfire Club who are believed to be communists however after accidentally stumbling into a secret room she finds a group of people with extraordinary abilities, a woman who can turn to diamond, Emma Frost, a man who looks like a devil and can teleport, Azaezel, a man with the ability to conjure whirlwinds, Riptide and their leader, Sebastian Shaw, the same man who traumatised Erik Lensherr. She seeks out Xavier to help her prove that mutants exist and to stop Shaw and his group but their first mission is a failure only managing to save Lensherr from drowning. Together Xavier and Erik join the CIA in a new mutant division and begin to seek out others to help them put a stop to Shaw, they enlist the help of Hank McCoy, Darwin, Havok, Angel, Mystique and Banshee.
Together this band of mutants must work together to stop a madman from bringing about the third World War but in doing so they risk revealing the existence of their kind to the world and bringing about an era of fear and hate against all of them.
First Class is not the greatest movie ever made, Michael Fassbender (why is everyone crooning over this guy?!) is probably the weakest of all the performers in the movie, barely able to contain his accent, the plot is a stretch at the very least and the constant chopping between locations is a little annoying too. However all of that doesn’t even come close to ruining the film, we are as always delighted to see our heroes and favourite villains on the big screen and the film is a fantastic display of effects and visuals. James MacAvoy, January Jones and Kevin Bacon are perfectly cast and while the performances of Fassbender and some of the others were poor at best, these three manage to capture our attention and thankfully outshine their other cast members.
There are a few inconsistencies with regards the Marvel timeline and character biographies that any Marvel fan will spot straight away but when it comes to the movie adaptations we’re always willing to overlook those for the sake of a good movie. However we do have two things left to highlight, the film fails at capturing the sentiment of fear and isolation surrounding the life of a mutant, it so desperately pushes this angle on the character of Mystique, that our favourite blue skinned assassin instead becomes a miserable and all together useless character and the relationship between Xavier and Erik is pushed so fast that even in movie timelines it feels rushed.
Like we said above, this is not the greatest movie ever made, but who cares?! It has amazing special effects, we get to see our favourite comic characters on screen and there are some brilliant mutant fight scenes (with the exception of Angel flying around hocking flaming balls of acid slime on people!). If you are looking for a fun, entertaining and all together enjoyable movie, then you have to go check out First Class… if you are looking for a film dedicated to one of Marvels greatest creations that pays respect and homage to those icons… then shut up and snap out of it… it’s Hollywood and this is as good as it gets so go along, leave your knowledge of the series at the door and enjoy!
(We don’t know why this is on the soundtrack but here ya go, the main track!)
