X-Men: First Class – (Jon’s Take) Review

After two ridiculously handled X-Men films from Fox, it wouldn’t take much to right the ship after the rushed fiasco that was X-Men: The Last Stand and the mind-numbingly stupid X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but X-Men: First Class just doesn’t right the ship, it thoroughly carves itself out as one of the finer examples of the power of comic book storytelling. Fox’s X-Men films has always had its only loopy logic in its handling of the comic stories and character relationships, but after First Class, comic book fans can easily put aside those groans for what is an intense, emotionally sophisticated film, that not only bests the prior X-Men films, but rivals nearly everything in the genre thus far.

Much like how The Dark Knight feels more like a crime thriller than a superhero blockbuster, X-Men: First Class feels like a great espionage film in the vein of From Russia with Love. This is not only helped by the film’s setting in the tense late Cold War 1960s, but in the incredibly deep performances by James McAvoy as Charles Xavier, Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw, Jennifer Lawrence as Raven/Mystique, and Michael Fassbender as Eric/Magneto. There’s humor and weight, subtle ticks and high drama, that when placed against President John F. Kennedy’s Cuba Missile Crisis speech, elevates the film from being just a mere superhero movie into just a flat out great movie.

But as dazzling as the special FX are, as great as Matthew Vaughn’s direction is, it’s really the anchoring by Michael Fassbender’s performance that solidifies X-Men: First Class‘s greatness. American movie-goers might faintly recognize him from Inglourious Basterds or Jonah Hex, but it’s his work from Hunger and Fish Tank is where I knew his casting as Magneto was spot-on. You root for him, despite the knowledge of his future villainy, and while it isn’t hard rooting for a Jewish survivor from the Holocaust who’s hellbent on killing some Nazis, it’s the duality of the fine line Magneto walks as possibly the world’s strongest mutant and the decisions he makes, that easily outweighs what  Sir Ian McKellen did with the role…three times. There’s was a time when a solo Magneto movie was planned, and at times you get the sense of what that was like here in X-Men: First Class.

Even director Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass, Layer Cake) has taken another leap forward in his career, which face it, after X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, it was going to take a monumental feat to right this franchise. Vaughn has done just that. X-Men: First Class is so thrilling, it’s a shame Fox has come out and claimed that this prequel ties into those prior four films. There’s elements and story strands when thought hard on, don’t make sense when connected to Singer’s two X-Men films. It’s no fault of this film, as X-Men: First Class is as good as summer tent-pole films get. With some clever nods, winks and cameos, when Michael Fassbender at the very end states: “Call me Magneto“, X-Men: First Class revitalizes not only this franchise, but maybe even the genre too, and also our faith in believing the comic book genre – in all of its over-saturation as Hollywood money-making machines – is far from drained.

When’s the sequel coming?

Rating:

Jon Peters

I love film. That is all.

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