Starring: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Rose Byrne, January Jones, Kevin Bacon, Nicholas Hoult and Lucas Till
Director: Matthew Vaughn
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for brief strong language, some sexuality and a violent image.
Genre:Â Action/Adventure, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Sequel and Adaptation.
Runtime: 132 minutes
Release Date: June 3rd, 2011 (wide)
Distributor:Â 20th Century Fox, Marvel Studios
By: John M Delia, Jr, Guest Writer
Stan Lee, creator of X-Men knows how to write a comic book including a good story and with the film X-Men: First Class he also knows how to keeps the audience interested. The fifth episode to the X-Men saga is better than the last and really fills in the gaps heading back to the first film, X-Men.
It’s starts in the beginning of X-Men showing us how Charles Xavier and Magneto become who they are, along with some other characters we know from previous episodes. The film also introduces some additional mutants that, although show some similar powers i.e. Riptide (Storm), Havoc (Cyclops) as well as Azazel (the father of Night Crawler), really grab your attention with their roles in the film.
A new evil character is introduced, Sebastian Shaw played by Kevin Bacon, a Nazi leader who searches for mutants and will do anything to find them. Bacon does an excellent job playing the antagonist and makes you believe that his mission drives the movie. Then there’s Charles Xavier portrayed by James McAvoy and Magneto played by Michael Fassbender who do an excellent job performing their roles and keeping the audience interested.
McAvoy makes his Professor X work as shown in the way he believes that helping mutants and guiding them to control their desires is for good not evil. While in contrast Fassbender’s Magnito builds a separate plot helping Xavier recruit mutants to help stop Shaw while hiding his desire to get his revenge.
Throughout the movie you get exceptional support performances from many actors especially with some characters you’ve seen before. For instance, Jennifer Lawrence (Raven/Mystique) does a great job getting the audience to understand the emotional issues of her character. Raven/Mystique, a shape shifter, who from a young age battles the desire to hide her true self and display a sense of beauty, sacrifices her desires to be loved by others.
Nicholas Hoult’s (Hank McCoy/Beast) also having emotional issues with his characters mutant abilities and really gives you a sense of his pain. Beast also troubles with the desire to be normal and show his true self or hide behind a false front. But, his role is key to the plot; by using his brilliance Beast works with Xavier to expand his abilities to contact other mutants and build a defense against Shaw’s attacks against humanity.
Director Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass) does an excellent job answering all the questions on how it all began. He even makes some risky movies by retelling stories that could be interpreted a little different and manages to expand on them without any issues. He grabbed my attention and really entertained me throughout the movie. I was so intrigued that I can’t wait for the next sequel and wonder what they will do next.
So, as you can tell, I really enjoyed the movie and recommend it to all, especially the X-Men fans. It follows the storyline of the traditional X-Men comic, I am sure with the usual help from Stan Lee, and brings the story to life making the audience wanting more.
Film Grade:Â I Give it an A for excellent.