Movie Review #56: X-Men: First Class (2011)

Originally, X-Men: First Class was basically meant to be X-Men Origins: Magneto. But instead of that, they decided to make a prequel. And that could either go the way of Rise of the Planet of the Apes and be completely awesome, or the way of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace and be disappointing. Let's hope for the first.

X-Men First Class takes place in 1962 and in order to prevent the start of World War III, the government enlists the help of Mutants to stop this from occurring.

I was going to review this movie without re-watching it, but I decided to not post this review on Friday and revisit the film and I am glad I did so because this movie gets better every time you watch it!

What makes First Class is the well written script and the cast. Like the first two X-Men films, this script evenly balances fantastic action set pieces, great character development and fantastic performances from the whole cast.

James Mcavoy plays a young Professor X and it was really cool to see that Xavier wasn't always a stoic, wise bald guy. He was actually an incredibly intelligent ladies man! It was really funny seeing him flirt with girls because this guy later becomes Patrick Stewart as Professor X and can you honestly seeing Patrick Stewart hitting on girls? That's what I thought.

Jeniffer Lawrence plays Mystique and they explained and went in depth with the relationship she had with Professor X and Magneto. The other X-Men introduced like Havoc, Banshee and Beast were great, but the one that stole the entire film was Michael Fassbender as Magneto. I have loved Fassbender in everything I have seen him in like Inglorious Basterds and Prometheus, but this is my favorite performance of his because he captured all of the anger and despair Erik went through so perfectly.

One of the more surprising performances came from none other than Kevin Bacon. He plays Sebastian Shaw who is the main villain of the film and he's fantastic! Of all the times I watched Footloose, I never imagined that the guy dancing around in a warehouse would ever play a menacing, German speaking mutant hellbent on starting plunging the world into World War III. Or a villain in general. That was oddly specific.

The only character I had a problem with was January Jones character of Emma Frost. I thought she felt out of place, unnecessary and uninteresting. Although there is a cameo that might be the best cameo in the history of cameos. I'm serious about that.

Final Report: X-Men: First Class is the best X-Men film to date because it included all of the elements that we loved first two films and none of what we didn't care for in Last Stand and Origins. It also reminded us why we loved X-Men in the first place.