X-Men: First Class (2011)

The greatest thing about making a prequel is you don’t have to worry about how you’ll close your picture. All you need is to match everything nice and tightly and show the “how they became like that”, and the fans will cheer. That’s why “Revenge of the Sith” is the best of the prequeles of SW, and that’s why “X-Men: First Class” works so much more than “Wolverine”, definitely the worst super hero movie ever made (and yes, I’m including the 1966 Batman, and Batman & Robin). The Bryan Singer X-Men were more character studies. In the third, “Last Stand” (for me still the best of the franchise), Brett Ratner delivered a much more action packed thriller. “X-Men: First Class”, reboots the franchise taking elements from both these approaches, making a more coherent whole. It is also succeeds in making amends with the public, after that horrible horrible horrible thing that was “Wolverine”. Matthew Vaughn, director of “Layer Cake”, “Stardust” and “Kick-Ass”, presents a story about the origin of the X-Man fraternity, namely the birth of Charles, Professor X (James McAvoy) and Erik, Magneto (Michael Fassbender). After a brief introduction in the 1940s (repeating Magneto’s scene from the very first “X-Men”), on which Charles and Erik discover their powers, the action is set in the 1960s, and the focus is on the Cuba missile crisis. Once you get fictionalized characters into a documented historical event, then your risks are higher. I personally don’t like these alternate realities (the trailer for “Captain America” makes me shiver). If the characters are fiction, stay on fiction territory. Don’t screw with events we know. Erik is on a mission to catch the ex-nazis that killed his mother, and this part resembles a James Bond film (Fassbender will make a great Bond some day). It’s action packed and thrilling. The head Nazi is Kevin Bacon (in a cool bad guy performance), a doctor who experimented with the early X-Men, and who, surprise surprise (well, not really), is one himself. He will become the great instigator of the cold war, and the leader of the bad X-Man. Meanwhile, Charles and Mystic are growing up together, thinking themselves unique. When Bacon starts to strike, events unfold with Charles being recruited by the CIA, and then there comes the recruiting of the rest of the X-Men, the first encounter Charles-Erick, the fight against Bacon, the fight against the racism of the “normal” humans and the learning to accept yourself part, until the final battle at the Bay of Pigs. The comic X-Men fans will be pleased by the little details. The fans of the movies will understand how everything became as we know it (why Charles is in a wheel chair, where Magneto got the helmet, why Hank is a blue furball, how Magneto and Mystic met, how did they get the mansion, etc, etc). Also there are amusing cameos by Hugh Jackman and Rebecca Romijn Stamos. The thing with this movie is that it does not need to go full cycle. It does not need to end, it does not need to tie the loose ends, because the prior films have already established the story. So, individually, this movie may have some lapses. Yet it works. It may not be the best of the franchise, but it’s entertaining (the 130 min flew by), it’s well handled by the director (although the action is as usual much better than the cliché sentimental “why am I a mutant” parts), and it has that naiveness in the characters that express still their inexperience as the X-Men. I am not an expert on X-Men comics, but I think it will please the fans. But someone please tell me 2 things. Why, why, with all the mutants in the world, do they only recruit 5. Couldn’t they fight evil much better with 100? But 100 characters in a movie would be too much. Still, that recruiting is for the sake of the film, not of the X-Men. Dumb move by them, I have to say. And second, why, why, Charles Xavier has to put 2 fingers on his forehead everytime the uses his telepathic powers? He can read people’s thoughts but he can’t do it unless he shoves a finger in his head? Ridiculous.