X-men: First Class

The X-men franchise has had an interesting and embattled background, one film of which is regarded as arguably the best superhero movie ever made (X2) while another is regarded as arguably the worst (X3). At its’ core the franchise has had to withstand constant sabotage, budget cuts, and time constraints from Fox Studios’ resident turd Tom Rothman, yet despite being given every reason to fail these films reliably bring in massive box office returns, a story kind of fitting for the X-men, whose tagline and core belief is “To Protect Those Who Hate and Fear Them”.

Personally, my entire childhood love of comic books has stemmed mainly from two comic franchises that I grew up admiring, Spiderman, and the X-men. Both of these franchises told interesting and exciting stories about flawed but honorable protagonists, but while Spiderman was primarily a metaphor for the struggles of a young man becoming a man, I believe the story of the X-men has always been more fascinating, as it dealt more on the lines of a social commentary about discrimination and societies’ inability to accept what they do not know. Heavily influenced by the civil rights movement, what’s remarkable is the ability to relate to the series’ core ideas just as much today as you could at the time of its’ release fifty years ago. Now finally, after two outstanding films and two borderline coma-inducing films, the fifth entry into the series takes a big step (both back in time and in the right direction) and becomes the “origin story” for the franchise.

I seem to be one of the few people who enjoys a good origin story. I can understand why many people don’t appreciate them because it is very hard to squeeze in an interesting action story when half of your film is dedicated to flushing out a new characters and establishing their beliefs and principles while they also develop the power of demi-gods. From this standpoint, it was a little surprising to see that the original X-men was able to get away with making a film that was NOT an origin story. The film opened up with the introduction of Wolverine to the rest of the X-men, and while their initial relationships could kind of be viewed as an origin of the team each of these characters has already learned the full extent of their powers (with the exception of Rogue, who can never control hers). So while the idea of making the fifth film in the franchise an origin story is a little unsettling, this film does an exceptional job of pulling it off.

Where this film truly excels is in character development, which as you know by now is my favorite part of a good film. We see the friendship that develops between a hotheaded, revenge driven Eric “Magneto” Lehnsherr, and an idealistic, but naïve Charles “Professor X” Xavier, and this development is handled well and realistically. The dialogue is genuine and real (with the exception of one scene), and the lines between Eric and Charles are something you would expect to hear from two friends discussing real life issues in real situations. What really grabbed me though, was the very well done and interesting best friendship between Xavier and Mystique. These two come off as two people who have actually grown up together as best friends, with Charles wanting nothing more than to protect Raven and work towards creating a world that would one day allow her to reveal herself publicly since she didn’t possess the ability to blend in with the normal world like Charles did. In fact, this relationship was handled so well that it helped me deal with the fact that it made no sense from a comic standpoint, since it never occurred in the comics OR original movies.

You know, now would be a good time for me to address one of my biggest issues with this movie, the apparent waffling of beliefs when it comes to addressing new developments of the film. From a movie goers standpoint this isn’t much of an issue, but as a comic lover I see a lot of switching back and forth between whether they wanted to stick with the pre-established notions of the film franchise, or just throw all those ideas out the window and start from scratch in a brand new universe. Choosing any one of those ideas is fine, but this film chose to exist in a strange limbo world between the two choices. For example, I can get behind the idea of Mystique and Charles growing up as best friends, and they even have a throwaway line about how since she doesn’t age the same as everyone else she will appear much younger when we see her again in the first official X-men movie.  The problem is that now when I watch those films again I see a Charles Xavier who is completely clueless about Mystique’s identity, and I see a Mystique who has no problem with the idea of poisoning Charles in the first film, despite her deep affection for him.

On the other hand I see the opposite problem in the choices of mutants they use for this film. If you are going to call this movie X-men: First Class, then I expect to see a movie about the X-mens’ first God damn class! Every comic reader knows that the first class consisted of Charles Xavier, Scott “Cyclops” Summer, Jean “Phoenix” Grey (or at the time, “Marvel Girl”), Hank “Beast” McCoy, Bobby “Iceman” Drake, and Warren “Angel” Worthington III. We could have had a fantastic movie about watching these pre-established and beloved character first learning to use their powers, but instead we are stuck with the B-team because some people didn’t want to impede on the pre-established conceptions of these characters. If you’re going to start fresh with a new timeline then who cares if you bring back the classics?

Back to the positives though, one thing I loved, and I mean LOVED about this movie was Kevin Bacon’s resplendent return to major film, complete in all his scene stealing glory. His portrayal of Sebastion Shaw was pitch perfect, and every single scene he was in made us pretty much forget about every other actor on the screen. He brought a strange sort of campy joy to the role that I love seeing, mostly because I believe that these days most comic book movies seem to be taking themselves WAY too seriously. Surprisingly, my all time favorite moment in a comic book film was actually from the first Spiderman movie, and I don’t know if I should be thanking Sam Raimi for directing the scene or Willem Dafoe for the pitch perfect delivery. During the first fight between Spidey and Goblin there is a part where Peter disables the glider, and as Dafoe flies off he screams (with a perfect touch of campy goodness) “WE’LL MEET AGAIN SPIDERMAAAAAAAAN!”. It was beautiful! The audience is instantly transported back into a great and exciting ride of comic book delight, and from that point on every single moment of Green Goblin screen time I saw Dafoe in an all new light despite the hilarious costume. That was what Kevin Bacon’s performance reminded me of, but as great as he was he was just the cream of the crop of a great cast that turned in outstanding performances.

James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender do great work with their respective leading roles, and as much as I liked seeing Charles develop into the mentor and teacher her would eventually become I actually found myself sympathizing with Magneto more. Fassbenders’ tortured conflict of ideals sets the stage beautifully for the turn we know is in store, and when that big moment finally arrives it is done with a beautiful sort of subtle character turn, not an awful, abrupt, jarring transformation like in the Star Wars prequels. It’s a moment when Magneto just plain goes too far, and we see how it crushes Charles to realize that despite their friendship he will never truly be able to help Eric the way he imagined.

SPOILERS

I loved this scene by the way, and it gave me goose bumps how well it was done. If the coin had just zipped through Shaws’ head like a bullet it wouldn’t have been nearly as effective, but something about the way it slowly passes through gives me the creeps and makes the scene that much more eerie.

END SPOILERS

I also really enjoyed seeing the always great Jason Flemyng as Azazel, but I was pretty disappointed at his lack of lines. Casting someone like that and not giving him any good lines would be like casting Liev Schreiber for a throwaway role in some action movie. Rose Byrne was great and classically gorgeous as Moira McTaggert, despite the lack of accent, and even all the new kids do a good job in their roles, particularly Caleb Landry Jones as Banshee and Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique (it should be noted that she was just nominated for an Oscar as well).

Sadly, three performances fall flat, especially in the face of the outstanding performances surrounding them. The first is Alex Gonzales as Riptide, who can’t create a believable facial expression to save his life. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem with a role as small as his was, but when you don’t have any lines in the film (if he did I don’t remember them) then having a clean slate face the entire film isn’t going to do it. The next is Zoë Kravitz as Angel (not that Angel), and while she didn’t bother me as much when she was trying to play seductive she utterly lost all credibility when she needed to play for keeps with real emotions. On top of that, the face she made whenever she spit fireballs was so hysterically silly that it took me out of the film every... single... time... she did it. At first I thought maybe she got a big break in the film because she was Lenny Kravitzs’ daughter, but then I found out that she got a big break in the film because she was Lenny Kravitzs’ daughter.

And of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t bring up the abominable January Jones as Emma Frost. Her emotionless, boring, toneless, soul-lacking, uninteresting, nauseating, catatonic delivery of every single line utterly ruined what could have been one of the best new characters for the series. I mean look at this s**t!

I said LOOK AT IT!

That’s the face she makes the ENTIRE MOVIE! Emma Frost is a staple in the comic world and personally I always saw someone like Naomi Watts playing the role, someone with a quiet and noble dignity, beauty and grace (and who can act!), but now we are stuck with an actress whose line delivery and blank expressions are so shockingly awful that the movie dies a little every time she opens her mouth. Her line delivery has the emotional void and disconnected feeling of say… a National Geographic narrator, only not as excited. Luckily, the surrounding cast is talented enough to have their performances pull her through the rest of the film, limping to the finish line, and at least they significantly improved the horrible diamond effects from the turd that was Wolverine.

Unfortunately, that’s the only effect they improved on. Another issue with the film I had was the apparent giant leap backward in effects this film took compared to other high budget Hollywood films. I can’t really blame the filmmakers for this one because I know this film:

a.       Had its’ budget slashed, and

b.      Was incredibly rushed (principle photography ended 3-4 months before its’ release).

As much as I tried to overlook it though, there were some effects that came across as really bad… like Syfy original movie bad. I remember one scene where Banshee was first trying to fly that seriously reminded me of an effect you would see in a bad kids’ movie like Baby Geniuses or something. Again, I’m not trying to beat the filmmakers up too badly because I REALLY liked the movie, but these effects were jarring to say the least. However, remember what I said in my first article about effects not mattering as long as we like and care about the characters, well here is a perfect example of how this is true. I was too interested in the film to really notice the effects at first, it was only while watching some of the special features that I really began to see the problems. A strange case however was the transition of Beast. I liked the actor that portrayed him a lot, but when Beast transformed just like we knew he would my first thought was “Oh Jesus that’s awful”. As the film went on though I actually started to like the final product, and by the time the credits rolled around I really didn’t mind the final look (although believe it or not I still prefer Kelsey Grammars' portrayal from X3, it was the one bright spot of that miserable excuse for a movie).

The last few issues I had with the film were simple, and by no means had any significant impact on my overall enjoyment of the film. Xaviers’ spinal injury bugged me, and even though the scene was handled beautifully and we all knew it was coming I think the idea to put Xavier in the chair this early was a massive mistake. I was hoping with this new imagining we could have an X-men movie based in each decade, each dealing with a massive worldwide problem at the time and adding central characters as time went on, like Storm in the 70s, sentinals in the 80s, etc. Also, I didn’t like how they got their names. Superhero names are a big deal, whether it’s Spiderman, Captain America, The Hulk, usually there is an interesting reason or a funny joke behind the actual title of a superheroes’ name, but here it’s a simple “You should be called Professor X and Magneto!” And then BAM! Done.

All in all, I greatly enjoyed the film, and while I wouldn’t say I loved it, it is easily my second favorite of the franchise. Some silly parts of the film were abound, but the strong direction, great acting, and interesting characters kept me more than intrigued, and this is definitely a ride I will be taking again in the next few weeks. The only reason I nitpicked this film so much was because this was the type of film that irritates me the most, a film that was just a few simple tweaks away from being a truly great movie.

8.5 out of 10