Monday, July 11, 2011

Awesome Reviews: X-Men: First Class

I love X-Men. I love them so much. It’s a story that I think lends itself to the big screen much better than other superheroes, save for maybe Batman. Before I dive into the review, just a few housecleaning items.

1) I did not see X-Men Origins: Wolverine, so if they are any discrepancies between that movie and First Class, I can’t comment on them. (EDIT: However, I just borrowed Wolverine from a friend, so there may be a further edit of this review)

2) When I saw the trailer for the film, my expectations, despite my experience with X3, were enormous.

3) The vast majority of my X-Men knowledge comes from the film series, the animated TV show, and random bits of information. I did not read the comics much, and I am not an expert by any means.

So without any further adieu, let’s get rolling with that synopsis, shall we?

There will be spoilers in this review, but if you’ve seen practically any of the other movies, you know all of them already.

It’s the 1960s- the cold war, John F. Kennedy, and the civil rights movement origins for mutants. (Your textbooks said it was for African-Americans, but nah it was totally mutants). Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne) is working for the CIA, looking for a potential traitor in the shady American political underground, who may be giving secrets to those pesky Soviets. After witnessing what can only be described as “some pretty funky shit” [citation needed], she enlists the help of Charles Xavier (James McAvoy), a telepathic mutant himself who also has the ability to bend bullet trajectories around Angelina Jolie. The government takes interest in several mutants to help their investigation, including one revenge-seeking concentration camp survivor Erik Lensherr (Michael Fassbender), with the power to manipulate metal. However, just because Xavier and Lensherr work together doesn’t mean they see eye-to-eye…


THE AWESOME:

1) Professor X and Magneto

Let me clear something up here. X1 and X2 were great films largely because of Patrick Stewart and Ian McKlellan. X3 wasn’t a total piece of shit because of Patrick Stewart and Ian McKlellan. So it’s pretty damn important that Xavier and Lensherr have a strong relationship. That’s a lot of pressure on McAvoy and Fassbender, but they completely deliver. We see their earliest memories, why they are who they are and we are SHOWN, not told, their philosophies on mankind. It just works. Fassbender in particular was phenomenal, and while I had a little trouble seeing McAvoy growing up to be Stewart, Fassbender effortlessly convinced me that McKlellan was on the way. Great performances.

2) THE STORY- SPOILER ALERT

I won’t say that the writing was awesome, but the story was. It kind of reminded me of a spy movie- appropriate for the time period, I suppose. (SPOILER ALERT) Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) manipulates everyone around him in order to set up a nuclear war scenario, and it is very interesting to see how he does it- by playing his hand very carefully.

The best compliment I feel you can give a movie is that you don’t notice how long it is. X-Men: First Class clocks in at 2 hours and 15 minutes but with this solid of a story, and pretty good (occasionally great) writing, it doesn’t feel that long AT ALL. It sucks you in from the first moments and keep it going the entire way- a solid execution of a good script.

3) THE MUTANTS

How can I put this?

Remember all the cool X-Men? Your favorites? Go ahead, think of that particular one- your absolutely favorite mutant.

You got him/her?

Alright, bad news. Overwhelming odds are, that mutant is not in this movie. Which makes it all the more impressive that they were able to attract me to the characters and make them so damn likable. More importantly, they seemed to learn from X3 that quality over quantity is better- the mutants that we encounter in this movie, we really get to know.

I can’t say any of the mutants besides Professor X and Magneto really stood out- I mean, the acting didn’t blow me away or anything (for a variety of reasons)- but the roles were competently handled and the cast had great chemistry. If I had to pick, I’d say Nicholas Hoult (Hank McCoy/Beast) probably did the best job from a supporting standpoint, but then again, the beauty of the X-Men is that there are so many interesting characters and relationships that you tend not to notice individuals (apart from their mutant powers/abilities, obviously), and you see groups instead.

4) THE EFFECTS

I am a big hater of CGI. It’s overused and makes every film look the same after a certain point. HOWEVER, this film expertly uses to CGI, particularly in its action sequences and its background. Simply put, I knew I was looking at CGI, but it wasn’t the distracting oh-my-god-the-animators-are-really-going-overboard CGI, but it actually ENHANCED THE MOVIE (imagine that).

That being said, I can appreciate the sequences- most notably the early scenes with a young Magneto that realistic stunts were performed. It seems like a rarity nowadays in superhero movies. I don’t want to say too much more and ruin the fun of these scenes, but they were pretty cool.

5) CAMEOS

I could only spot two (although IMDB said there was three). Really cool for those who really pay attention, even though one cameo is blatant.



THE NOT AWESOME:

1) MYSTIQUE

Raven/Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) is a f**king disaster for long portions of this film. And it’s certainly not Jennifer Lawrence’s fault- it’s the writers.

Is this girl mental? I’m serious, does she have some sort of problem that prevents her from having coherent thoughts about how she sees the world and the basic interactions that humans have with one another?

I can deal with confusion- it’s only natural that a young girl (beginning of the movie) and young woman born with layers of blue prosthetics all over her body would feel awkward in a society where having dark skin makes you a second rate citizen (remember it’s the 1960s)- I get that. But there’s a difference between being confused or uneasy with your place in society, and being uncomfortable HAVING THOUGHTS.

Maybe it’s just me, but I do NOT see this character growing up to be Rebecca Romijn’s confident portrayal, particularly in X3.

2) CONTINUITY

I have heard two theories regarding the continuity of this film in relation to the others in the series:

a) it’s a direct prequel- everything is supposed to flow exactly into the other movies.

b) it’s kind of a direct prequel- it could go into the other movies and the general plot points and scenarios apply, but a lot of the specifics the audience is supposed to look the other way

So, if it’s A:

MAJOR ISSUES come up, especially with characters relationships, ESPECIALLY concerning X3. I realize this is tough to counter- how could those films have known about the plot of this one?- but it’s just really hard to swallow. Again, Mystique was really poorly handled in this regard (specifically in relation to Professor X).

If it’s B:

What the hell does that mean? Okay, so I’ll ignore some parts (from what I understand this mostly applies to the Wolverine movie details), and this spares most of the criticism of Mystique, but I just don’t get what they mean. It seems like a cop-out, just in case they want to use this as a reboot for the franchise (oh God please no).

NOW, all this being said, will this ruin this particular film?

No, the continuity only causes problems if you’ve seen the only films or are picky or both.

3) MINOR ISSUES

- the writing got a little lazy and awkward at times. This refers to dialogue, specifically a few scenes meant to showcase philosophy (see Prof X and Magneto in AWESOME). Not a killer, but noticeable. Like they were trying to give a wink to hardcore fans, but missed a bit.

- Kevin Bacon is an extremely talented actor, but there were so many times I just laughed and laughed at the prospect of his playing the main villain. I think it’s from watching Footloose and Tremors so many times. Especially Tremors. God I love Tremors.

- Even if you haven’t seen any of the other movies, or know much about the story at all, you can see almost everything coming.

- the pivotal moment of the film between the Americans and Soviets is just about the corniest sh*t I’ve ever seen in a superhero movie. This includes Spiderman 3. The dialogue is just so terrible….

- This movie is not Tremors.

Verdict time! So does this movie has Class 5 mutant awesome in it, or does it reek like Juggernaut’s jock strap?

Overall, on a scale of 1-10, 1 being sh**ty and 10 being mind-blowing, X-Men: First Class gets a…

7.5: This may be the best film in the X-Men series. There’s a lot going on this film, and it’s quite a ride. I highly recommend it to any comic book/superhero fans. I haven’t mentioned this word yet, but the movie felt HUGE. It felt EPIC, like this sh*t mattered. It’s what made X1 and X2 work, and what was missing from X3. I didn’t even mention a lot of the mutants specifically, but almost all felt necessary to the story, and some were BAD ASS. This movie deserves to be seen on the big screen. Not a perfect movie, and I don’t think it was better than Spiderman 2, but it was pretty sweet. Go see it!

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