X-Men: First Class

First Class indeed!

Lover: Taken from IMDB
“WOW!!! Mathew Vaughn has done it again! This absolutely wipes the floor with x men origins wolverine and X men the last stand, and in my opinion is even better then x men 1 and 2. The story is so well told, all the characters are brilliantly fleshed out and every one of them either has a really interesting character arc or is just awesome or funny. The script is perfect ranging from effective humour, to really dark but emotional scenes (especially a stand out one in a concentration camp), the action is both inventive and astounding with some very clever uses of powers. But the best thing about this is how well every character is explored and how they show some real depth here, in my opinion this is even better intellectually then the dark knight. Everyone gives a great performance too. Nicholaus Hault brings pain and frustration to the character of beast expertly, as does Jenifer Laurence to the character of mystique. but ultimately this is a film about Charles and Erik and when they need to James Mcavoy and Michel Fassbender really display magnificent acting capabilities and presence, the film charts those two coming together as friends and then falling apart, and it does so brilliantly and there performances cement this. I cant recommend X- men first class enough See more”

It is a great film and I loved it to, better than X-Men 2 or The Dark knight? No

Hater: Taken from IMDB
“8.2 out of 10?...seriously? the first x men was OK...the second was bad...the third was a bag full of puke...wolverine origins was a rape....but this one is worst than any of the other x men movies. What's wrong with this pile of garbage? 1- Professor X and Mystique are related? WTF 2-Alex Summers and not Scott? Why? Scott Summers is one of the original X Men, not Alex 3-Where is Angel? I mean Warren Kenneth Worthington III not that little butterfly girl. 4- Where is Iceman? 5- Where is Marvel Girl? What a silly plot. Hollywood can't make good movies anymore. They take a good source and just violated the fans with some stupid adaptation. What's with the romantic relation between Beast and Mystique? Where that came from? Mystique mated with Azazel and that's where Nightcrawler comes from. Stupid movie. I have no idea why the rating is so high. The Wolverine cameo was kind of cool though.”

I’m a bit annoyed really, every criticism aimed at this brilliant film is from fanboys upset that the history of The X-Men has been re written for this film. Firstly who cares if the film is this good with two brilliant central performances! Secondly Marvel rip up and re write their own universe so many times in the comics, why can’t their films!? Looking at this review, firstly X-Men 2 was hugely better than the first and one of the best comic book films ever made, all the other points are clearly from a snotty fanboy who’s got his knickers in a twist because it’s not X-Men the way he wants them. Steer well clear of these kinds of reviews.

What I thought:
Now first let me say that I am one of these fanboys, I like reading comics and The X-Men has always been my favourite. This means I have an interesting perspective on the films, The first X-Men was acceptable but from a clearly action shy director, however he shook off those fears and X-Men 2 was superb. The Last Stand and Wolverine got wrapped up in the how many mutants can we shove in here and make it look fun thing, thus it sacrificed any character development or the ever present themes of discrimination. First Class is exactly what you would expect, a whole new start for a franchise that was dying on its feet. The film itself relies heavily on our two main characters, that complex relationship between Professor X and Magneto is prime ground for exploration.

Thankfully the casting has been spot on, Michael Fassbender being the stand out, his good looks and charm used superbly to make a young magneto a kind of rouge James Bond character. In the early scenes and one of my favourites he plays with the powerless humans as he seeks revenge for his parents. James McAvoy however plays it a little safer; aside from the flirting and using his powers to pull women it’s very much the self-righteous and wise performance of Partick Stewart only with hair. However it is a very good performance and the chemistry between the two drives the film through what could have been its more slowing moving scenes.

There was always going to be danger tying it in with Bryan Singers X-Men, the obvious ones being the inclusion of Cyclops YOUNGER brother, Mystique and Prof X being semi related and How Professor X is able to walk at the end of Wolverine but not at the end of this? I’m sure there are more however I don’t care the films too good to care; it’s obvious that Havok is related to Cyclops just in a different way from the comics. There’s the issue with Mystique but I think she’s key for the breakdown in the relationship between our two Charles and Eric. There there’s the walking; Wolverine was a poor film and I would happily delete it from the franchise if I had the choice.

If you’re an X-Men fan or a fan of comic books it all depends on how willing you are at accepting that this universe has been played with to fit into what is a very good film. Using the 60’s setting to breathe life in give it the perfect excuse to explore the side of X-Men you haven’t seen the “yellow spandex” is in and looks great, it’s also arguably the funniest of the lot.

With new that they are going to do a second I’m very excited and hope they try and bring in some more old school villains. I’d love to finally see Mr Sinister or maybe even Apocalypse (though that would be tough), So I say shove all the fanboys X-Men: First Class is just a great film go and see it and please Mr Vaughn can we have some more?