Crow. Crow. Crow.
All weekend long I was thinking about how much of it I would have to eat after seeing X-Men: First Class. Instead, I thought I would just own up to it.
If you’ve been keeping up with the Bonus Materials blog here on the site (and if you haven’t, seriously, why not?) I’ve been crapping all over X-Men: First Class since the first promotional stills came out. The film just looked… goofy. And desperate. There was absolutely no indication that Fox had abandoned the slapdash “every obscure mutant and the kitchen sink” approach that made their last outing – Wolverine: Origins – such an abysmal failure.
How wrong I was.
I won’t go into all the details. If you want to read my review, I posted it online late Saturday night after watching the movie. But I will say this much: If I was going to rank the X-Men films, I’d still put Bryan Singer’s X-Men 2 at the top of the list. But Matthew Vaughn’s efforts with X-Men: First Class are a close second.
How good is this movie? It made me forget that Wolverine: Origins ever happened. That’s significant, people.
Some critics are wetting their pants and saying that X-Men: First Class is the best film in the series. That might be a case of lowered expectations talking. My praise doesn’t go that far. The film has some dead spots. Most glaringly, January Jones as The White Queen. You could have pinned a couple of water balloons to a 2 x 4 and been given a more scintillating performance. Kevin Bacon seemed to be having a lot of fun as the main bad guy. But Azazel and Riptide? Seriously? You couldn’t have gotten better henchmen?
There are also some contrivances in the plot that feel fine when you’re watching the movie, but don’t really hold water if you think about them. Like how Mystique and Professor X met as children, or how Charles Xavier somehow convinced his family to adopt her? It’s never really explained.
The one thing I expected to have the biggest complaint about – the characters included in the “First Class” – wasn’t really a problem at all. From the outset, it seemed weird that the film would sacrifice the First Class of the comic books – Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Angel, Iceman and Beast – for the totally odd assembly of Mystique, Havok, Banshee and Beast. But the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced it was a smart move.
Long-time fans of the comics might care about those characters individually (I know I’m a fan of Havok and Banshee) but they don’t really care about them as a team. As a result, it forces the focus on Professor X and Magneto, their relationship and where their paths separated. It’s very clever, really. Because if you had stocked the film with Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Angel, Iceman and Beast, I would have wanted to know more about them, their histories and how they got along as a team. Professor X would be almost entirely incidental.
So, in that respect, X-Men: First Class isn’t really about the First Class at all. And, truthfully, when you have James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender as your leads, you wouldn’t want it to be. The movie is about establishing the X-Men as a concept and creating the context where they are necessary.
Making a film that featured Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Angel, Iceman and Beast would be pointless. Because, in the comics, the team was already recruited and the only reason given was because they were mutants. It wasn’t long before they were sent into battle with Magneto. But there’s never really any motivation give. “Here are the good guys and here’s the bad guy. Now fight!” is the context. X-Men: First Class gives us SO. MUCH. MORE. to sink our teeth into. Think of it as the prequel before the prequel.
With that said, did you see X-Men: First Class this weekend? If so, what did you think and how much crow did you have to eat? Maybe you were one of those smarties who thought it looked great all along? Either way, leave your comments below!
Really good! I liked it a lot.
I thought you said it looked stupid?
I did. I guess I was wrong.
You DO know you don't literally have to eat crow when you're wrong about something, don't you?
Yeah, I know. But crow sounded good and we were all out of pigeon.
I enjoyed it in spite of myself. It was like a big Bond flick with super powers. I will say, though, it rode entirely on Xavier and Magneto. Everyone and everything else was propped up on them. Emma Frost was the most glaring not just because Jones is a bad actress, but they also didn’t give her anything to work with. That wasn’t Emma Frost, that was a character who looked like her and happened to have the same powers.
There are a million things I could nit-pick, but overall I enjoyed it.
Gotta agree… I’ve been making fun of this film since I saw the first trailer. And then when those posters with Magneto and Xavier that looked like a bad photoshop job came out, I pretty much wrote off the movie completely.
Then came the reviews and word of mouth on Friday as people (including X-Men purists) told me how awesome the flick was as they left the theater. Convinced me to see it Saturday night, and I loved it.
However, I do feel this is the best in the franchise. X2 is certainly brilliant in its own right, but First Class felt much more like what I would expect an X-Men movie to be.
I enjoyed it a whole lot, despite a few obvious warts. Banshee not being Irish and Moira MacTaggart not being Scottish was annoying.
The one I can’t really forgive them was including Havok and not Cyclops. It makes no sense to pick up one brother and not the other, especially considering the manner in which Cyclops becomes Xavier’s right hand man.
Also, considering Havok’s periodic swings between working for Magneto and working for Xavier, you could have added something to the third act of the plot that was much less motivated with the stripper character with fairy wings.
But if that’s the largest plot screw-up in a superhero movie, you’re doing pretty well.
I liked the film very much but I feel as you said that excluding Eric and Xavier the rest of the cast were not only under used but take a bit from the parts of the movie that were interesting.
The focus of the story was Magneto and Xavier and I would liked to see more about them, I hope the next movie delivers.
And on that note i wonder if Capitan America would be as good as the hype make it seem. Because it’s going to be very difficult to beat X-Men:First Class
my original comment as “too short”
EWWW!!
Everyone nitpicks. I thought it was a great movie. One of the best in the series and definitely a frontrunner for best movie of the year in my book.
Also @daniel: Grow up.
I thought it was very well done. As for Xavier convincing his family to adopt Mystique he probably just messed with their heads. My favourite part about the movie is you see that Charles Xavier is a bit of a hypocrit. My friends and I left the theatre a bit uneasy because it does an excellent job of making you want to side with Magneto.
I think it’s safe to assume that Xavier probably tweaked his parents minds a little. And with a shape shifter in the house, it probably wasn’t difficult to keep up appearances. I just would have like to seen it explained. It certainly would have gone a long way toward pushing the idea that he’s a hypocrite who uses his power – even altruistically – to suit his needs.
The end credit scene for the third movie definitely plays into that. All for the “greater good” provided it’s his good that’s being envisioned.
Oh Tom, Crow is stringy and tough. hence the “eating crow” in the common lexicon. Pidgeon on the other hand is soft and sparse. better to eat but not much there.
I liked the new Xmen movie but there were little issues here and there. I think the one that bothered me the most was the Xavier/Erich relationship was not really built as well as it could have been.
I thought they founded the school together so the working together breifly at the FBI and then separating after the Cuban Missle Crisis without fully building Cerebro together or at least geting some of the school underway felt a bit rushed to me.
Well they did work out together at the mansion but it was more of a post FBI training instead of a school with an ingathering of students. But that is just me.
Also, just a nit to pick but if Magneto stops the bullets and missles why is he deflecting the bullets when the FBI agent is shooting at him? Also shouldn’t she know he can deflect the bullets? Why is she shooting at a man who just stopped a thousand missles?
I took Moira shooting at Magneto to be more of an outburst than a legitimate attempt to put him down. Which makes Magneto deflecting them (instead of stopping them) more in keeping with her aggression.
Magneto may have also just stopped a thousand missiles, but he’s still kind of operating on rage here. Lashing out. No control. He’s not the disciplined person we know from the earlier movies.
In fact, whose to say that it isn’t regret over what happened to Xavier that led him to discover that discipline in the aftermath?
I haven’t gotten to see it yet, what with being out of the country and everything… although I did tell you I was sure it would be great. 😀
So YOU were the one! 🙂
Please note you have to ignore comic and movie cannon almost entirely to watch this flick and not ask questions.
I didn’t dislike the movie, but I did see that this basically replaced “X-Men Origins: Magneto,” which the studio has been wanting to make for a while. Thankfully they put more into it (characters, story, etc), but this flick is lacking in that we really don’t learn anything new about the characters from what has come in the previous flicks – except for one thing that happens at the end of the flick, which I won’t spoil here.
What I dug about the first two X-Men flicks was the focus on character as well as story. In this flick I don’t feel I get to know any of the characters very well. You get a deeper understanding of Beast and Mystique, since they have some nice moments together. But much beyond that, we don’t get to know anything about the other characters.
Overall I’m glad I saw it at a matinee, but won’t be buying it on DVD.
I really, really, REALLY liked the early scenes with Magneto. I said as much in my review, but I would have paid good money to watch Erik Lehnsherr: Nazi Hunter.
I’d pay to see that movie. It combines my favorite things: angry dudes with vendettas, and killing Nazis!
I went to see it on Saturday afternoon, and felt sorry for all the parents who’d brought their kids. This was a good film, but one with plenty of sex, death and torture.
Eh. You know that you’re signing up for a Magneto backstory. You’re either not going to be true to that character, or it’s not going to be a pretty story for the under-10 crowd. A five-minute wikipedia search is going to establish this.
Aye let’s hope they up that vein of thought a bit more with the next Wolverine movie. He had the best line in the film.
FYI: there’s nothing extra in or after the credits. When they start rolling, you can leave (unlike Thor, Pirates, etc)
Adding to what I said after your previous review, I think it’s right on the money to say that the film was focused on Erik and Charles. Thinking more about it, I almost wonder if the movie wouldn’t have been better if it had been ONLY Erik and Charles, developing their friendship over a longer span of time, and working together to stop Shaw (and ONLY Shaw, or at least have him be the only antagonist mutant). Then perhaps throw in one monkey-wrench, like Moira, to be the Yoko to their John and Paul.
Almost feels like it would’ve been a better flick to me. Kind of a combo Origins movie for both Magneto and Professor X, and cutting out all the chaff that seemed to make the story so weak.
I’ve been a fan of all of Mathew Vaughn’s films so I was willing to give this one the benefit of the doubt. I wasn’t quite sure about the seemingly random selection of mutant characters to populate the movie but as I watched the film it didn’t really bother me. In the end it gave me the same feeling as reading the late 70’s through 80’s era comic books. Which is a good thing.
Leading up to seeing it, I’ve been very angry about how little it cared about the canon from what I could tell. Not just the comic canon which I knew wouldn’t match up but even the movie universe’s canon. It looked cheesy, didn’t have any of my favorite characters and was just… eh.
I really enjoyed the movie though, and I’d almost say it ties with the second one for the best out of them. Thinking back on it, I agree with your opinion on the White Queen. Nothing really special about her, but I kind of feel that way about Emma Frost anyway. One big heaping MEH.
SPOILERS
I was confused about her diamond form. At one point, Erik nearly destroys her with the metal bed, twisting her neck so she could shatter. Yet later on we see her back in diamond form perfectly fine. What?
Azazel. They probably picked him so Mystique will eventually have an affair with him, leading to the birth of Nightcrawler. I think they really just wanted to show how awful some mutant abilities could be in the hands of people who wanted humans dead. That scene in D.C. with Azazel teleporting people into the air and dropping them kind of got me.
Also, I was very disappointed that there wasn’t a scene after the end of the credits.
Good point about Azazel using his powers for evil, teleporting people above the ground.
But then, X2 kind of established the misuse of mutant powers when it opened with the mind-controlled Nightcrawler breaking into the White House.
Eh kind of, but that was really small scale. Azazel killed how many people in that tiny frame of time just by teleporting. Also, it might be a good way to relate the scene in the second considering they’re the same power.
Also, I was irritated with Darwin. That could have been a really neat mutant power to play with, and I’ve never actually seen him before. But then they kill him! Was he invented just so they wouldn’t have to kill any other characters off?
Darwin was a character that was actually created a few years ago. He was part of a team that Professor X created before recruiting the original line-up. So, in that respect, the movie is kind of on point with the comics.
That first team was lost, kept in stasis for decades. Darwin survived because of his mutant ability. But I’ve kind of lost track of him in the comics since then. Not sure what happened to him.
Ahh okay, cool. I haven’t really read much of the recent X-Men except for when Storm married Black Panther. I can’t afford to keep up with them. 🙁
In terms of continuity, I was surprised how much of the movie did away with what had happened in the last four films.
Spoilers Ahoy…
With the last scene in FIRST CLASS, we invalidate both the pre-title sequence from X3 where Charles and Eric are recruiting Jean Grey in the 1970s, and Charles’ picking up the mutants after they break out from Three Mile Island in WOLVERINE. In both cases, Charles was fully mobile, years after he had his spine severed in Cuba.
(And believe me, I’m trying hard not to make a “Beach Blanket Mutant” quip right now…)
This makes me think that the movie is not so much a prequel as it is a total reboot, the beginning of a whole new series that ignores the othre four films and starts fresh. And frankly, I’m OK with that. If they want to make a bunch of films that have the cool parts of OUR MAN FLINT and THE ODESSA FILES, and maybe a few other sixties films that work with the vibe like HELP, that would be something worth putting on your CV at the end of the day…