Review: X-Men - First Class

A certain surprise cameo suggests that X-Men: First Class is intended as a direct prequel to the existing X-Men trilogy, but in effect, it’s actually a reboot, as its style is substantially different from (read: superior to) the prior three films. Hot off the success of Kick-Ass, his hard-R rated comic-book adaptation, writer/director Matthew Vaughn has turned his attention to the considerably more mainstream Marvel franchise and the results are nearly as great. Here is a movie with a pretty silly subject and not a lot of depth that nonetheless sustains a 2 hour and 12 minute running time with ease. Thanks to Vaughn and editors Eddie Hamilton and Lee Smith, the film is incredibly well assembled, both in terms of the action and actually letting the viewer get to know the wide ensemble of characters. Even though it doesn’t boast an 11-year-old swearing and slaughtering, X-Men: First Class is every bit the stylistic tour de force Vaughn’s last film was.

Part of what sets Vaughn’s X-Men apart from the rest is, despite a rather serious setting (which prominently features Nazi Germany and the Cuban Missile Crisis), the movie maintains a high level of energy that keeps it from taking itself too seriously. This, to me, was where Bryan Singer’s first two entries in the franchise ran amuck: they struck grave tones that made the presence of goofy mutant characters seem like a bad joke. While it may have been a wet-dream for the fanboys who actually view the saga as reality, it was alienating to a great many of us casual viewers. Vaughn, thankfully, better understands how to convey the source material’s campy spirit, without jeopardizing its sense of narrative consequence (the major risk in going ‘lighter’). For instance, there is a perfect sequence in which the cast of young mutants show off their powers to one another, just after meeting. They watch and respond with the same sense of wonder that a 12-year-old boy reading the comic-book would, conjuring up an infectious level of charm.

That said, the film’s often boyish tone does not defile Vaughn’s command of storytelling; the presentation is incredibly skillful, not cartoonish. This is a necessity because, while there is not a lot of depth to the material, it is quite complicated in that it deals with roughly a dozen characters that intersect over the span of two decades. We first meet Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender) as kids in the 1940s, when they first come to terms with their mutant powers. While Charles lives a privileged life in an upstate New York mansion, only troubled by his secret telepathic abilities, Erik is traumatized in a Nazi concentration camp. The camp scientist (Kevin Bacon) tries to harness the young boy’s magnetic powers for evil, shooting his mother to punish him when he can’t move a coin as instructed. Eighteen years (distilled into a remarkably economical half-hour) later, their paths converge as part of an investigation being conducted by CIA agent Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne). They discover that super-villain Sebastian Shaw, who is actually a de-aged version of Erik’s childhood tormentor (yes, he’s a mutant, too), is executing an evil plot that would have grave implications for the United States. Recruit an X-Men team to stop Shaw, they must!

Vaughn and his editors must have had an instinct for putting the movie together, because it flows so perfectly that it seemingly defies calculation. (That is, up until the last half-hour, discussed later.) The first act immaculately intercuts between Charles, Erik, and later MacTaggert over nearly 20 years, never confusing the viewer as it plows forth in history at a rapid pace. The second is even more impressive, as it must simultaneously introduce a handful of new mutants, develop the existing ones, and show Shaw’s plot unfolding. A lot of content is thrown at the viewer, but Vaughn ensures that it goes down easy. Not to mention, the special effects are integrated well, too; not only do they look great, per the current industry standard, they are also not overly showy. As opposed to many recent Hollywood spectacles, the characters and the action always drive the visuals in X-Men: First Class and not the other way around.

The performances across the ensemble are quite good, too, even if the characters are not the most three-dimensional. Fans of the series may find fault in comparing the characterizations to those of the original trilogy–after all, these are supposed to be the same people, earlier in time–but most casual viewers (myself included) won’t remember enough to do so. If one treats the movie as an isolated ‘reboot,’ as I proposed in the introduction, it’s tough to find fault with any of the casting. McAvoy gives Charles Xavier, the academic who will go on to run the school for mutants, the right blend of principle and smarts. Michael Fassbender, Hollywood’s new hot commodity after several great performances in smaller films, likewise delivers the appropriate amounts of determination and pent-up rage for the young man who will become Magneto. And of the secondary cast, recent Oscar-nominee Jennifer Lawrence is downright luminous as Charles’ age-old mutant friend Raven (AKA Mystique), winning the viewer over both as the super-hot blue superhero and the charming girl next door. And the rest of the pack–from Bacon to Byrne to Oliver Platt to January Jones and more–uniformly deliver.

But the movie must run into a hitch somewhere, right? Unfortunately, yes. As hinted above, the last half-hour of X-Men: First Class is highly problematic. It attempts to set up the schism between Charles and Erik (a major part of the series) in a very small amount of time, all while the action finale is taking place. Given the skillfulness of his approach to the rest of the movie, Vaughn’s lack of elegance in weaving this in is confounding. Shoehorning the emerging division between the two characters into the conclusion, so as to create a hook for the next installment, could never have been an easy task. But certainly Vaughn and his co-writers did not need to handle it the way they did. The interspersion of this developing story-thread with the action ultimately causes both to feel convoluted, which is an awful way to leave the viewer, especially in light of the film’s earlier accomplishments. However, said accomplishments do make for a mostly great superhero movie that begs for a sequel, in spite of its last-minute challenges.

* * *

X-Men: First Class (2011, USA). Produced by Gregory Goodman, Simon Kinberg, Stan Lee, Josh McLanglen, Tarquin Pack, Lauren Shuler Donner, and Bryan Singer. Directed by Matthew Vaughn. Written for the screen by Ashley Edward Miller, Zack Stentz, Jane Goldman, and Matthew Vaughn. Story by Sheldon Turner and Bryan Singer. Starring James MacAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Kevin Bacon, Rose Byrne, Jennifer Lawrence, Oliver Platt, Álex González, January Jones, Nicholas Hoult, Caleb Landry Jones, Edi Gathegi, and Lucas Till. Distributed by 20th Century Fox. Rated PG-13, with a running time of 132 minutes.