Spoiler-free Review of X-Men: First Class!

X-Men has always been a franchise I’ve had a hard time liking. There are a lot of interesting characters, but that in itself is the problem; there are too many characters. All of the comic books, TV series, and movies come across as crammed, leaving many of the potentially great characters undeveloped and hard to care about. However, I seem to be in the minority on this opinion because boy do people love these things. Not to say anyone is wrong or right, it’s just some people think the dynamic really works and some people, myself included, do not. I was not a big fan of the original X-Men movie, I thought the second one was pretty good but also one of the most overrated comic book movies of all time, I did not like the third one, and I hated X-Men Origins: Wolverine. So even though X-Men: First Class looked very promising, I had my reservations. As it turned out, it was my favorite in the franchise - but that’s not saying much.

X-Men: First Class goes back to the formation of the X-Men and gives us the story of how the future Proffesor X and Magneto met. Now, I am not one of those people who will get upset if they tweak some things from the source material. As long as it’s done in a good way, I say that movies deserve some liberties. So that is not the reason that I did not like this movie as much as everyone else seemed to. One of the problems I had with this film is actually something that I can’t discuss in too much detail here in order to keep this a spoiler free review. So to be brief, some storylines are brought up and never resolved, and others are brought up in the movie randomly without any sort of buildup. One particular example comes to mind that involves Mystique, and I frankly don’t understand how people who aren’t familiar with her character well accepted some of the things she did. The movie was also too long and there were stretches where I got bored watching it, a problem I never had with Marvel’s other superhero movie that came out this year. The movie had moments where it could have easily allowed itself to have more fun, but it didn’t take advantage of that and rather stuck to the dark, realistic tone throughout the vast majority of the movie. However, one thing this movie did very well is action and special effects. It may not have felt like a superhero movie in tone, but it sure had all of the action you’d expect from a summer blockbuster and then some. The fight scenes were riveting to watch and boasted some of the best special effects I’ve seen from a summer movie in a while. Those scenes, as well as the scenes between McAvoy and Fassbender, were my favorites in the movie.

Another thing that this movie has going for it is the acting. Nearly all of the actors in the movie were great, but the film still suffered from the problem that has plagued X-Men from the beginning - too many characters. Some characters ended up getting handled poorly, and some characters seemed like they were given stuff to do just so they’d be involved with the movie. Specifically, the characters who I think the movie handled well are Charles Xavier, Erik Lehnsherr, Dr. Moira MacTaggert, Beast, Banshee, Darwin, and Azazel. The characters who I think were mishandled are Mystique, Sebastian Shaw, Emma Frost, Angel, Havok, and Riptide. Let’s start with the good ones. James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender pretty much saved this movie in my opinion. They were absolutely fantastic as Charles and Erik and had wonderful chemistry together. People are saying that Fassbender specifically was outstanding, but I think McAvoy was just as great and the film would have suffered severely without them. Beast is my personal favorite member of the X-Men and Nicholas Hoult played him to near perfection. Maybe I could have done without all of the romantic stuff, but in terms of his character, they completely nailed it this time. I was very happy about this given my love for the character and dislike for his portrayal in X-Men: The Last Stand. As for the characters I think were mishandled, none was worse than Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw. Kevin Bacon is a fine actor, but he played one of the goofiest, non-threatening villains I’ve seen in a comic book movie. His character came across as silly even in what was intended to be dark scenes. Don’t even get me started on how ridiculous he looked in that helmet. Mystique made decisions that baffled me, although Jennifer Lawrence did a great job in the role. As for Emma Frost, I have yet to like January Jones in a movie and this is no different.

Overall, I think that X-Men: First Class was a good, solid superhero movie that has been getting much more praise than it deserves. As I said before, it’s all a matter of taste and this series just isn’t my favorite. However, I still think this is the best in the franchise and I realize this review may come off as strongly against the movie, but I’m just trying to give some of the main problems with the movie because chances are everything else you read will talk about how great it is. Plus, I’m pretty sure the surprise cameo alone makes this movie deserve a half a point more.