Ok I'll admit, like most people out there when I first heard about X-Men: First Class I hated the idea of it, I thought it was going to be another fail like X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and now like most people out there, I'm eating my words. Normally I'm not a fan of Matthew Vaughn, that's right folks, I didn't enjoy Kick-Ass, but he really brings us something amazing with First Class, I think he finally gives us the X-Men movie we've all been waiting for.
I'll start off by talking about what I didn't enjoy about the movie, to get it out of the way before I get to the amazing parts which is basically 90% of the rest of the movie. January Jones as Emma Frost, in my opinion the worst casting choice of the entire film. I'm not sure if it was the way the character was written or just what Jones personally brought to the role but I found the character rather bland and quite drull. She seemed extremely cold and emotionless throughout the entire film, I constantly felt like she was just standing there reading her lines off a teleprompter. I would've preferred someone who could really bring some life into the character, and January Jones was definitely not that person. The next issue on my list is Beast's makeup, when I was seeing all of the promo pictures and various TV spots I thought he looked great, I loved it, but seeing the character in action on the big-screen, I felt like I was watching some guy in a cheap blue costume running around on screen. There were still some shots where he looked awesome, like when he was flying the jet he looked cool as hell. Mainly it was just in a couple of the close of face shots and full-body shots that I felt he looked a little bit silly. One minor thing that kind of annoyed me was near the end of the movie, it seemed like Michael Fassbender was having a hard time hiding his thick accent, he went the entire movie sounding perfect, but at the end battle scene it started to slip and it kind of caught me off guard and distracted me at times.
The next and probably biggest problem I have with this movie is one I already knew going into the movie, make no mistake friends, this is 100% the Charles & Erik movie. The movie goes into great detail to get us to understand and be interested in the characters of Erik & Charles that I felt it didn't do enough justice to the other interesting characters like Havok, Banshee, Riptide, Angel. It spent so much time developing Charles & Erik that throughout the rest of the movie and during battle scenes, I couldn't bring myself to really care about what happened to the other characters. My last issue kind of goes hand in hand with the last, the dynamic between Charles & Erik is absolutely amazing, Vaughn makes the whole situation believable. However, I think the friendship, and eventual downfall of their friendship is something that should have been spread out over a sequel or trilogy. I always got the impression and Xavier and Magneto had been long time friends before their split, where as in this movie it felt like they knew eachother for about 2 weeks. So here's hoping for some more character development in the sequels (which I'm looking forward to).
Ok now that we have my whining and complaining out of the way let's get on with the good stuff. First off the setting, Matthew Vaughn manages perfectly to deliver a "what if" scenario while at the same time making a 60's era film. I've seen many movies attempt to do the same thing and they almost always fail miserably, I'm not entirely sure how Vaughn did it but I can assure you, he pulls it off. The thing is, I knew the movie took place in the past, but never once did I feel like I was watching a 60's era movie, Vaughn makes a perfect balance of nostalgia while at the same time keeping things very modern and interesting. I'm sure by now you've all heard about the two cameos featured in the film and in case you haven't I wont spoil them for you but I'll tell you this, they fit perfectly. I find when most directors try to put in cameos it comes off as "Hey Look! Look There!See what I did!", but Vaughn didn't give us that, the 2 cameos fit in perfectly with the scenes they were featured in, they didn't seem forced. The first cameo in the movie definitely got a lot of laughs in my theater whereas the second cameo, a lot of people didn't seem to even notice to be honest.
One of the things Matthew Vaughn gives us with
First Class that in my opinion was lacking in the previous X-Men films, is the team dynamic between all of the characters. Yes, as I stated earlier there wasn't much time spent on other characters but when all of these guys are thrown into action, they work as a team, they play off one anothers powers to get the upper hand. It's not just a bunch of mutants fighting and doing their own things and the only way you know they're a team is because they're wearing the same clothes. There was a great team dynamic here, I really believed this group of misfit mutants could really band together to overcome such a major obstacle like Sebastion Shaw.
Lastly, because I don't want to make my review too long and boring for you guys, is the cast. Let me assure you right now, besides January Jones, this cast is amazing, it doesn't matter if the character only has 2 minutes of screentime, every actor chosen for their respective roles was absolutely spot on. McAvoy and Fassbender brought something to the table that I don't think can be rivalled. I know you've heard it before "Fassbender and McAvoy steal the show blah blah blah", but the reason you keep hearing it is because well it's 100% true! These guys are amazing, before they even share any screentime you can tell that these guys are going to be the highlights of the movie. Their on screen chemistry is outstanding, I'm sitting here trying to think of another great on screen duo that I can compare them too but frankly I cant, they're just that good and I'm excited to see more of them in the sequel.
The rest of the supporting characters were completely amazing as well. Nicholas Hoult made an awesome young Hank, before this movie I'd never even heard of him, but I'll be keeping an eye out for his future movies because this kid can act. He brings an entirely new dynamic to the character, more in-depth, we understand the character more, something we never truly got with Kelsey Grammar's Beast. I found it a little hard to enjoy Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique, I'm not sure why but I did, as the movie went on I learnd to like her though and although I don't like her look as Mystique, she brought a lot to the character, she did a great job of showing us this very naive and self-concious Mystique. The rest of the cast, as I said was amazing, Till as Havok was spot on casting and he's one character I really hope to see more development for and screentime in the sequel. Caleb Landry Jones as Banshee was great, although he didn't have the accent, it never bothered me, Jones did a great job of keeping the character interesting enough to just not care about his accent. I wont bother going into detail on the rest of the cast, but trust me, they all were absolutely outstanding, Azazel especially, I loved that character, he was so menacing and vicious, I cant wait to see him in the sequel.
My rating for X-MEN: FIRST CLASS - 7.5/10