I saw First Class a few weeks ago and immediately recognized it as the best X-Men movie. This one had Michael Fassbender playing a great Magneto, a solid, despite being miscast Charles Xavier and Kevin Bacon, however it's not all sunshine and rainbows.
The plot is simple. Charles Xavier and Erik Lansherr create a team of mutants called the X-men and in a matter of what feels like minutes discover they don't have the same goals, and split the team up creating an archrivalry that would last decades. Also Kevin Bacon.
Let's start with the good. The whole plot of Magneto going on a vengeance quest to kill the Nazi's who destroyed his young life was badass in a way I haven't seen in a long time. Every Magneto/Nazis scene works so well and deserves to be recognized, especially an early scene which I'll discuss in a moment. Another step in the right direction in this movie, was putting the X-Men back in costumes that looks like X-men costumes. We get to see several characters learning to control their powers.
The problem with this movie is that everything they tried to do is only half fleshed out or severely rushed. They try to show Charles and Erik become good friends, however this is limited to about a few weeks whereas it was always implied they were friends for many years before the falling out. They tried to have the whole movie take place in the 60s but it rarely felt like it did. They tried to show us the founding X-Men team which of course consisted of Cyclops, Iceman, Marvel Girl, Beast and Angel...actually none of those people were there except Beast, and he looked terrible when he turned blue. Instead we have our founding team filled with people I barely even remember and Banshee who actually is a popular X-Men character in his own right. The only other noteworthy character is named Darwin and his ability is to survive. I remember him because the scene after he explains his power he dies, and yes...he is the only black character in the movie.
The depressing thing about this movie is that it really didn't take use of a big part of the X-Men.... The X-Men. When I reflect on the movie I only really remember Charles, Erik and Kevin Bacon. I have to actually think about it to even remember who was even on the team. That's just a weird decision to me.
This movie without question had to have had the most anticlimactic final showdown I have seen in a while and in this day and age superhero movies have really been doing a terrible job in the "final battles". Which brings me to....
Kevin Bacon. He plays Sebastian Shaw and despite being totally miscast he nailed it. His entire performance is obviously just him having a blast and being super confident. The best scene for me was early on where he motivates young Magneto to use his powers by executing his mother right in front of him, and then has the fortitude to celebrate as though Magneto should be happy too. Kevin Bacon, I salute you.
Sadly I do believe that if Matthew Vaughn was making these X-Men movies from the start and not trying to find a way to fit into the Singerverse, I would have X-Men movies to talk about joyously unfortunately that isn't the case, so I leave you with a request. Don't spend money on any more of these X-Men movies. Let them fizzle out. Make it so it costs Fox too much to keep making them and they let the rights go back to Marvel. Only then, will we ever have a shot at a good X-Men movie. If you like the X-Men movies, trust me when I say a movie actually based on the X-Men would blow your mind!
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