It’s kind of hard to believe that this is the fifth film in the X-Men franchise. (It’s also surprising that it made it to five films without a complete reboot a la Spider-Man.) I’m a fan of the first two films, but the third film was an exercise in how not to construct a narrative, and I didn’t bother with the Wolverine spin-off. I’ve been rather leery of First Class throughout its production, and the trailers all seemed to confirm that it was going to be another ridiculous entry in the franchise that will probably never be allowed to die a peaceful death. I was intrigued, then, to see it turn in mostly positive reviews and went to the theater last night feeling cautiously optimistic.
While X-Men: First Class isn’t a perfect film by any means, it did a lot to reignite my faith in future X-Men films. It focuses, as the first two films largely did, on building character and story over creating epic action sequences, and it manages to hold up thanks in large part to the excellent performances almost across the board from its cast. I found myself genuinely engaged with the film throughout, and while there were more than a few points where I was rolling my eyes at a line of dialogue or a particular editing choice–well, I can’t say that it’s a problem that’s totally unique to this film alone of the franchise.
The story of X-Men: First Class might best be summed up as this: the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis must be prevented by the efforts of a group of mutants led by Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Erik Lensherr (Michael Fassebender) after a different group of mutants led by one Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) expend a great deal of energy in making sure nuclear war between the United States and the USSR will happen, as a precursor to the rise of a mutant-led society. While much of the film involves Charles and Erik gathering the group of teenaged/twentysomething mutants that comprise the “first class” of the title, the Cuban Missile Crisis is the conflict that drives and unifies the film, and the script manages to neatly marry many of the subplots together under this umbrella event.
What makes First Class such a delight to watch, however, are the performances, particularly from McAvoy and Fassebender, who have a great chemistry together and manage to sell the friendship between Charles and Erik beautifully. Their scenes together were often the best in the movie, and they were pretty spectacular to watch on their own, as well. (I particularly loved Fassebender’s early scenes as Erik, before he meets up with Charles and the others.) Another great performance came from recent Oscar nominee Jennifer Lawrence as a young Mystique, who did a pretty good job conveying the character’s confusion over her self-image and personal identity as a mutant.
Overall, I found X-Men: First Class to be a highly enjoyable film, and a solid entry in what has thus far proven to be a fairly anemic summer movie season. It manages to jumpstart the franchise after the critical stumblings of the previous two films, and I’m once again interested to see what happens next for the X-Men.
4/5
(Also, a bit of an aside, but I loved how the film didn’t shy away from having the characters speak the necessary foreign languages in the various foreign settings the story flew through. After the intelligence-insulting, English-speaking Spaniards that appeared in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, it was a welcome relief to see even a small sliver of reality on the silver screen.)
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