X-Men First Class

Can I just say first off that I wrote a fabulous review of this movie in my head on the way home from the theater, but stops at Target and the grocery store have completely erased it from my mind so this will no doubt be a far more mediocre summary of the things I wanted to say.

X-Men First Class is an origin story of how Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) first met and became friends, and then enemies.  Both actors are superb, although Fassbender manages to steal the show due to a meatier character dealing with his growing powers and tragic back story of abuse at the hands of the Nazis in World War II Germany.  McAvoy plays Xavier equally well, except he is given less to do besides touch his temple to demonstrate his telepathy and expound with wisdom and superiority towards all of the other characters.  Apparently professor X was always a straitlaced know-it-all, despite an early, pointless scene trying to show him as a bit of a skirt chasing cad.  Jennifer Lawrence gives a decent performance as Mystique, and while her eventual decision to join forces with Magneto as opposed to her pseudo-brother Xavier feels natural and right for the character, it might have benefited from a few additional scenes demonstrating her inner struggle to accept her outward appearance. 

The action of the movie takes place against the backdrop of the Cuban Missile Crisis in the 60's, which turns out to have actually been the work of a manipulative mutant with the power to absorb all kinds of energy, played by Kevin Bacon.  In the introductory scenes Bacon exhibits a kind of uber-villain glee (and really good german), but in the rest of the film his bad guy kind of loses his sparkle as well as any sense of actual evil.  Even when he is absorbing the explosion of a grenade or gunfire and then sending it back in all its destructive glory he kind of just seems to be going through the motions. 

The whole "let's get the regular humans to kill themselves so mutants can rule the world" focus seems like an after thought as well - merely a vehicle to explore the friendship between the two protagonists and eventually set them at odds.  Which is where the movie fails.  There are too few arguments between the two friends where they hash out their different ideologies: Professor X wants to show the normal humans that mutants are people too so we can all live together happily - Magneto fully believes in mutant superiority and intends to hold mutants above and apart all the lesser gifted.  These differences of opinion form the basis of all the previous X-men movies, and the backbone of the X-Men universe - is there anyway mutants can live alongside humans peacefully, or are they destined to always fight for acceptance and survival?- and as such I would think they would play a larger role in the friendship of these two men both as it develops and as it dissolves.  Instead, we get chummy pals and then one angry moment when everything changes abruptly.  it's not entirely out of the blue or unrealistic, I just think it could have benefited from a little bit more exploration throughout the film instead of relying on hints and the fact that we are already familiar with who these characters become.

There is also a weird montage section with a very retro split screen thing going on - which I'm assuming is meant to sort of reference the fact that the movie takes place in the 60's, but instead just comes across as random and not at all in concert with the general mood of the movie.  And to clarify - its only the split screen effect that is offputting - the scenes in the montage itself are just fine.  But by far the worst thing in the movie is the character of Emma Frost.  First off, she is a telepath, which is kind of redundant since we already have a telepath, but she can also turn herself into diamond, which doesn't really seem to offer any advantage except that no one else can read her mind while she is in diamond form, and she can use her sharo diamond fingers to cut ice and glass.  Great?  It is kind of a stupid power, and the fact that both the good guys and the bad guys have a telepath is completely under utilized, so that basically makes her a totally unnecessary character.  Also, she is played by January Jones, who is the stiffest, worst actress I can currently think of.  I have no clue why she is so popular, except that I guess her character on Mad Men is kind of an ice princess and so her natural disability to act with even the slightest inflection or emotion probably plays into that nicely.  And she certainly is pretty.  But seriously Hollywood, stop casting her in other things because the girl is about as lively (and likeable) as a petrified tree trunk.  She shows more depth and emotion when she is CGI'd into sparkly diamond.

All in all, I think X-men First Class is a decent effort at the origin of these characters.  Certainly most of the acting is top notch, and the areas where the movie suffers seem to primarily be writing - or possibly editing.  The types of explanations that would have given the extra needed depth could certainly have been in the original script and tossed in favor of time or flashier action scenes.  But aside from Miss Jones, there wasn't anything remarkably bad - and overall it was a highly enjoyable combination of action and acting (with two wink wink cameos).

X-Men First Class 2hr 12 min PG-13