The X-Men are dead. Long live the X-Men.
The X-Men films have become the Tim Burton Batman movies of the 21st century -- we remember them perhaps too fondly than we should. Sure, they had their moments, and they were a big part of the evolution of the superhero film that got us to where we are today. But if there's one thing that you take away from director Matthew Vaughn's excellent prequel/reboot X-Men: First Class, it's just how antiquated the first three films seem today.
Vaughn, who was originally meant to helm the third X-picture a half decade ago before dropping out at the last minute, eventually cut his teeth in the genre with Kick-Ass. But First Class is far removed from the punkier edge of that superhero film, bringing us all the way back to the origins of Professor Xavier and his gang in the swinging sixties.
James McAvoy plays a Charles Xavier that is all but foreign to us. Walking, drinking, womanizing -- with hair! -- he's given us an Xavier who's less staid and noble and serious and more, well, human. McAvoy's take on the man who will be Professor X someday is so refreshing that, as the film works its way towards its finale and more familiar aspects of the character begin to surface, we can't help but feel just a bit disappointed. He's half the reason why this film works.
The other half is Michael Fassbender as Erik Lehnsherr, a.k.a. Magneto. Interestingly, Vaughn actually starts the film with a recreation of the opening of the original Bryan Singer X-Men, as the child Erik first finds his powers when trying to save his mom in a Nazi concentration camp. It's a ballsy move -- does Vaughn really want to weigh himself down at the get-go with an 11-year-old scene that we've watched over and over again? -- and yet he makes it his own, as Erik's traumatic origin story in the camps is further explored as the film progresses.
When we meet the adult Erik, he's a globetrotting, multilingual Nazi hunter with a splash of James Bond and perhaps a bit of Hannibal Lecter in his blood as well. He's on a single-minded mission to find and destroy the man who made him what he is today -- Kevin Bacon's Sebastian Shaw, a fellow mutant who taught the young Erik that only through torture and pain can he fully manifest his powers.
Of course, Xavier is the polar opposite. He's all about peace, love and harmony, and when his and Erik's paths cross, they form an instant bond despite their differences. They are, after all, two of the most powerful beings on the planet, but we come to see that it's more than that as Xavier shows Erik that there are options other than hate and rage and bloodlust. Fassbender and McAvoy share one of the film's best scenes when Xavier uses his telepathy to unlock a memory of Erik's that he had all but forgotten -- a happy image of his mother. It brings a tear to Erik's eye, and almost to the viewer's too. Meanwhile, Bacon and his brood of evil mutants -- they're kinda/sorta the Hellfire Club from the comics -- are planning to spark a nuclear war between the United States and the USSR. Suffice to say that the thinking behind this agenda is very comic-book-esque, but it works and it also serves to give us real stakes as our heroes fight the good fight. They're out to save us during the Cuban Missile Crisis, for chrissakes!
But first, a new mutant recruitment drive is undertaken, as will happen in an X-Men movie, with this particular batch proving to be the most memorable yet -- which is remarkable considering that the comics versions of many of these characters are sort of the second stringers of Xavier's class. Nicholas Hoult is great as the Beast, who suffers from an inferiority complex despite being super-smart, super-fast and super-blue. Also blue (in more ways than one) is Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique, the perennial hot baddie of the previous X-films but a baby-faced good girl here who is Xavier's closest friend. Zoe Kravitz is Angel -- much sexier than the Warren Worthington variation -- Edi Gathegi is the ever-evolving Darwin, Lucas Till is the uncontrollable Havok and, almost stealing the show, is Caleb Landry Jones' sonic-screaming Banshee. Rose Byrne acquits herself ably in the potentially thankless role of the plain old human Moira MacTaggert -- albeit a plain old human in lingerie when we first meet her.
Speaking of lingerie, Mad Men's January Jones is as icy as ever as Shaw's telepathic, diamond-plated sidekick. Her unique form of un-acting seems perfectly suited for the White Queen. Shaw also keeps a couple of other eye-candy mutants around -- Jason Flemyng's bamfing Azazel and Alex Gonzalez's tornado-minded Riptide are more special effects than characters, which is just fine in what is a movie that is perhaps too jam-packed with goodness.
As heady and grave as the situations these characters find themselves in are, X-Men: First Class also manages to be a really fun picture too -- Xavier's nights partying in London and telling potential hook-ups that their mutation/hair color is "groovy," the X-kids fooling around as only young mutants can, the stylized take on the era that Vaughn creates here, even the playful twinkle in Erik's eye when he's not otherwise occupied with becoming the scourge of humanity.
Vaughn (and his various and sundry scripters) manages to keep this film connected to the previous films while also launching it as its own franchise. There are several quick but great moments that are undeniably of that former X-universe. But at the same time, First Class is never hamstrung by continuity; who did what when with whom does not dictate this film's story. As it should not. That may turn out to be a lesson that Marvel will learn the hard way as its Avengers films become increasingly intertwined.
X-Men: First Class is a big, ambitious film that bites off a lot more than most superhero movies could ever hope to chew. It rarely stumbles -- some might say it's overstuffed, but hey, repeat viewings to take it all in are what fanboys like us are made for -- it frequently excites, and it also feels. It's finally just the story of two men and their friendship, which is doomed from the start. We know that story so well, and yet somehow Vaughn has made it feel fresh and new again.
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