X-Men: First Class

Just a quick post this week to get into the swing of it. Saw X-Men: First Class last weekend. I went in with high expectations based on a few twitter whispers i’d read, and while it unfortunately couldn’t meet all those expectations, it did pleasantly fill it’s two hour run time and is generally speaking good popcorn fooder.

James McAvoy and Micheal Fassbender carry the movie extremely well, taking both emotional dialogue and heavy action in stride, and stealing the movie from Kevin Bacon, who unfortunately is the weak link as far as cast goes, never getting around to explaining his motives beyond general feelings of revenge and megalomania. Another serious flaw is 1960’s period production design which is done with great effort in some areas but seems forgotten in others such as the X-Men’s plane which looks just as sleek and modern as it did in the previous trilogy to which this is a prequel.

The alternative version of the Cubian missile crisis plot is fun, and it’s interesting to see the film flirt with recorded history and do it’s best to ensure that it’s additions could plausibly have been covered up by authorities had this in fact been how events actually played out.

A lot of plot points will be lost on those who are complete X-Men newbies, meaning large portions of the film could seem rather slow.

Its a fun 2 hours, but does in places feel like an opportunity lost to make the franchises equivalent of Batmen Begins, where we don’t see Gotham at all in the first hour if I recall correctly. The film is much to keen to throw it’s core characters into a blockbuster sized plot when McAvoy and Fassbender playing off each other and keeping the plot low key may have made for a more in-depth origin story of both characters.

But with the great job both leads did i’m keen to see where they can get it from here, as I suspect the best is yet to come.

Overall well worth a place in your LoveFilm queue to brighten up a dreary Friday night.