On the plus side, however, it means that most of you have probably seen X-Men by now, assuming you had the intention of seeing it at all. Unless you were waiting for it to come out on DVD or get put on Netflix or something, but nobody does that because everyone loves paying fourteen bucks for movie tickets and another eight for popcorn. It's the American way.
In any case, this review will contain some spoilers because a lot of you have seen this movie already. Possibly multiple times, if you're like me. But if you haven't seen the movie, fear not! This isn't the most mind-blowing spoiler in the world because you can kinda figure it out by watching the trailer. (Oh hey, I don't see that one black guy in any of the shots of the final battle! I WONDER WHY.)
Okay! Onward.
Make no mistake: this isn't a movie about the X-Men. Not really. Oh, there's a team of costumed mutants flying around fighting evil in their iconic SR-71 Blackbird, but they take a backseat to the movie's real story, which chronicles the rise and fall of the best bromance ever.
No, I'm not kidding.
Here's the thing. To properly discuss this movie, I have to break it down into two categories: James McAvoy/Michael Fassbender, and everything else. The first category is awesome, and makes the entire movie worth watching because it's so damn good. The latter, on the other hand, ranges from good to competent to wince-inducingly clumsy. In the interest of ending on a high note (because I really did like this movie, despite what I'm about to say), I'm going to start with "everything else".
This movie carries some pretty strong messages about racism, almost all of which work better in theory than the way they're actually carried out on film. Yes, mutants are a minority. Yes, people fear and hate them and keep antagonizing them despite the fact that that's a really dumb idea because mutants have fucking superpowers. Hell, one of the main reasons the X-Men exist is so they can gain societal acceptance by saving the world and protecting ordinary humans. That's all well and good, but there are subtler ways of showing that humans are assholes than "HEY I DIDN'T KNOW THE CIRCUS WAS IN TOWN" and "THE MUTANTS ARE OVER THERE! JUST TAKE THEM AND LET US
And while we're on the topic of bigotry, can I just say that holy shit there are some racial undertones to this movie that make me extremely uncomfortable. I don't know how intentional this was, but maybe when you're making a superhero movie about the evils of racism, you shouldn't make your team of good guys exclusively white. Xavier and Magneto enlist two black mutants in their recruitment montage--and within thirty minutes or so, one of them has turned evil and the other is dead. But fear not, audiences! X-Men: First Class doesn't need them, because BLUE IS THE NEW BLACK. Out of the six good mutants that suit up for the final confrontation, two of them are cerulean-hued. That's like having minorities, right? Except that Mystique spends most of the movie looking like this, and Beast used to look like this.
Whoops.
Also, Darwin's death pisses me off on a non-racial level, because his mutant power is pretty much that HE CAN'T DIE. And then he's the first mutant to get killed. Seriously, I'm calling bullshit on this. The phrase "adapt to survive" is thrown around a lot, and then Kevin Bacon says "adapt to this" and puts a ball of energy into Darwin's mouth, and then Darwin looks like he's gonna puke and then he looks sad and then he starts crumbling and everything fades to white. What the hell, guys. It's not like Darwin couldn't think of a way to adapt, because the process is automatic. He's transformed into pure energy in the comics before, why couldn't he do it here? Honestly, they need to bring him back in the next movie. He's an interesting character with a really cool power and it would be really easy for the screenwriters to say "Oh, he didn't actually die from that after all."
On a more positive note, I loved Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw. He seemed to be having a whole lot of fun doing his villain schtick, and his powers were pretty great. The only downside was that they made him speak German and Russian and oh my GOD the man is awful at foreign languages. Seriously, there needs to be an agreement among all filmmakers that they will never again allow that man to speak German, and especially not when he's in the same movie as Michael Fassbender.
Another high point of the "everything else" portion of the movie was Azazel, Mystique's future baby-daddy (guess who their son is), because it's always nice to see teleportation powers used effectively in combat. People have this tendency to not take Nightcrawler seriously because he's not the strongest guy around, but OH HEY super-agility and teleportation can actually make you unbelievably deadly. And also swords. Swords help with the deadliness.
Banshee and Havok are both fun, as is Beast when he finally fursplodes, but they honestly don't have that much to do. That's the problem with team movies, really: you spend all your time on the main two or three characters, which means that all the colorful side characters don't get utilized to their full potential. (Take note, Avengers: Hawkeye is awesome and so is Jeremy Renner. Give him lots of screen time.) On the villain side, January Jones spends most of her time sitting around in slutty outfits, so she's got the most important aspect of Emma Frost's character down--but I kinda wish someone had told Ms. Jones that Emma transforms into diamond and not into a block of wood. Seriously, I'm not sure whether she can't act at all or just decided not to for some reason. And then there's what's-his-name, the one who makes tornadoes and doesn't say a single word for the entire movie. Turns out his name is "Riptide" and not "Eurotrash" like I originally guessed. You learn something new every day, I suppose.
Also, the movie just straight-up looks good. I really like the idea of a "superhero period piece", and I think First Class does a nice job with the 60's vibe. Here's hoping Captain America pulls of the WWII look, as well--it certainly looks like they're on the right track.
Okay. That brings me to my favorite part of the movie.
James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender are great. They're both very talented actors (Wanted and Centurion notwithstanding) who bring a surprising amount of depth to their roles, and any scene that features either of them becomes better by virtue of their presence. The scenes with both of them are just amazing, and not just because the fangirls want them to start kissing. (It's okay, I kinda do too.) The two of them have great chemistry and an innate understanding of how to play off each other, and it's completely believable that McAvoy's Charles Xavier and Fassbender's Erik Lensherr will go on to become two of the most influential figures in the Marvel Universe.
Honestly, if the movie had just been two hours of Michael Fassbender as Magneto traveling the world to hunt Nazis, I would have been okay with it. More than okay, in fact. I would have seen it six times on the big screen and pre-ordered the special edition DVD. He's badass, resourceful, debonair as fuck, speaks several languages, and has a face that looks like it was chiseled out of fine marble by Michelangelo himself. What's not to love? He's also the most sympathetic character in the movie, due to his traumatic childhood during the Holocaust, and he has pretty damn good reasons for his descent into extremism--namely, he spends the whole movie talking about how humans will try to eradicate mutants and then HE'S COMPLETELY RIGHT.
By comparison, Xavier is pretty much just a dick. He's brilliant and idealistic, yes, but he also uses shitty pick-up lines to seduce women in bars and treats Mystique less like a life-long friend and more like an annoyance. He's pampered and shallow, and for the world's most powerful psychic, he sure doesn't understand how people work. He spends most of the movie trying to convince Erik that mutants and humans will get along just fine, so he looks like a jackass at the end when the American and Russian navies try to kill them with a hail of missiles. All the same, McAvoy brings a surprising amount of depth to the character. It would have been easy to make this version of Xavier into a smug, holier-than-thou douchebag, but there's much more to it than that. Charles really believes that his utopian ideal is possible, and when the shit hits the fan, he doesn't back down. As naive as his beliefs may appear, he is willing to fight and die for them all the same.
The conflict between the two characters is set up wonderfully--Charles and Erik use different methods and eventually develop radically different goals, but they still feel an undeniable connection with each other. Even as they experience their parting of the ways, it's obvious that they both wish they could stay together. It's kinda heartbreaking, really.
And yes, their bromance is epic and adorable. There's even an entire Tumblr devoted to it.
So, yeah. See it, if you haven't. It's not all good, but what's good tends to be great.
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