Medieval-Pirate Reviews: X-men: First Class

[zelda_queen]

Hello I'm ZeldaQueen, and if there's snark I'll take it.

Let's face it folks, Hollywood loves its comic book movies. With their huge fanbases, story potential, and ability to appeal to a variety of fetishes, they're a box office goldmine. At least, if they're done right they are.

In 2000, Bryan Singer discovered that there was indeed gold in them hills when he directed the first X-men movie to grace the silver screen. Sleek, badass, and featuring a talented cast, the movie took the public by storm and it wasn't long before two sequels and a spin-off were released. While mileage varied on how good those films were, their general reception went downhill until it certainly looked like that would be it for movies on the team itself.

All of that was shaken to Hell when it was announced that 20th Century Fox would be releasing a prequel, X-men: First Class. With a number of clips and trailers released, it was obvious that everyone was trying to drum up a lot of interest for this thing. Fans of the comics, meanwhile, bemoaned the changes to their canon, both proven and anticipated.

How does this new addition to the X-men series hold up? Given that the movie has just been released, it's safe to say that there will be blood spoilers. That being said, let's have a look at X-men: First Class.

We start off with a series of childhood origins. The first up is Erik Lensherr who, just like in the opening of the first X-men movie, is being separated from his parents at a concentration camp. His mutation is activated just in time for him to rip up a gate. This gets the attention of Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon), a geneticist Nazi interested in the evolution of man, which rarely is the sort of position held by altruistic, kindly people. He meets with young Erik and asks for him to use his powers to move a coin. When Erik is unable to, Shaw brings in Erik's mom and says that if Erik still can't move the coin, she gets shot. Needless to say, he can't so she does. This prompts Erik to use his powers to crush filing cabinets, helmets, and the very sinister-looking medical tools and operating tables kept in the room next door to Shaw's office. Shaw notes that anger and pain causes Erik to best use his powers, and seems a bit too cheerful about this fact.

Before we can see Erik being tortured, we jump to a very familiar-looking mansion. Here, a young Charles Xavier is awakened by the sound of someone in his kitchen. It turns out to be not his mother, as the intruder insists, but a young and adorable Raven Darkholme in disguise. Xavier is delighted to meet another mutant and promises her that she can stay with him as long as she wants.

Fast forward some years, to roughly 1962. In Los Angeles, CIA agent Moira McTaggert (Rose Byrne) is investigating an organization called the Hellfire Club. Those who are familiar with the comics will know that the Inner Circle (the higher-ups of the group) follow a chess piece naming theme. In here, we really only see four of them, plus a handful of politicians that they have in their pockets. The leader of said four is, of course, Sebastian Shaw, who also turns out to be a mutant with the power to store kinetic energy, which boils down to "he blows shit up". His right hand-woman is Emma Frost (January Jones), who is in no way related to the in-name only version of the character from X-men Origins: Wolverine. Jones' version is pretty much spot-on, with the telepathy, diamond form, and outfits befitting a James Bond villainess. The other two are Riptide (Álex González), a mutant with the ability to summon whirlwinds in his hands, and Azazel (Jason Flemying), who is basically a red version of Nightcrawler. Comic buffs will know that Azazel is actually a demon who is, in fact, the biological father of Nightcrawler, with Mystique being the mother. The movie pretty much drops this to keep things simple, leaving Azazel as a red mutant with the power of teleportation and general badassery. Anyway, Moira spies around and sees Emma turn into diamond and Azazel teleporting away. Of course she has a dickens of a time convincing anyone of this, prompting her to turn to a specialist in the genetics of mutations.

As luck would have it, Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) is attending Oxford University, specializing in the genetics of mutations. He generally uses this to pick up girls, which turns out to be a more successful tactic than one would imagine. Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) is still with him, posing as his sister and going through some sort of identity crisis. Xavier is baffled by this all, because I guess a girl constantly switching to her blue-skinned form and asking things like "But would you date me if we weren't friends?" is too confusing. Moira catches up to Xavier while he's at a party and breaks through his mutant pick-up lines to inform him about the Hellfire Club. After a good deal of butting heads and arguing with the rest of the CIA, Xavier finally manages to track down Shaw's big old private boat and leads the coast guard to capture it.

Erik, meanwhile, has been spending his years hunting down escaped Nazis. He catches up to Shaw and goes to kill him, only to has his ass handed to him by Emma, who also is able to totally shut out Xavier. Erik still gets his own back when he literally rips the ship in half with an anchor on a chain, and the people on board escape to their yellow white submarine. His efforts to use his powers to lift the submarine out of the water fail spectacularly, and Xavier saves him by jumping into the water and restraining Erik in a rather suggestive manner. This will be a running theme throughout the movie.

Back with the CIA, they are introduced to Hank McCoy, a scientist working at a facility there. After Xavier unwittingly outs him (leading to Hank actually telling the agent in charge "You didn't ask, so I didn't tell"), it turns out that Hank is a mutant as well. He's trying to find a cure for his mutation, a dreadful condition that leaves him looking like a shaved ape a completely adorkable Nicholas Holt a regular young man with prehensile feet. Really, if the rest of the movie didn't play it with the "Don't try to mess with who you are message, I'd have facepalmed every time he wangsted about how his feet make him such a freak. He and Raven hook up and bond over their self-consciousness over their bodies and Hank eagerly tells her how he's very close to making a cure that will let them keep their powers but look normal naturally. Meanwhile, everyone in the audience who is the slightest bit familiar with the character mutters "You poor bastard".

In an attempt to help Xavier find Shaw, one of the CIA agents shows him a satellite that Hank converted into what is clearly a prototype of Cerebro. It also looks uncannily like a golfball. Using it, Xavier is thrilled to find that he can reach out and discover where other mutants are. While he can't use it to find Shaw, thanks to Shaw possessing a rather familiar dorky-looking, telepathic-damping helmet, Xavier still decides to take Erik with him to gather together a group of five special young people various teenagers, via an amusing montage. Thus, we are introduced to the titular first class. Roll call!

• Angel (Zoe Kravitz), a young stripper who can sprout dragonfly-like wings and spit an acidic substance
• Havok (Lucas Till), a kid in solitary confinement who can shoot hula-hoop-like energy blasts
• Darwin (Edi Gathegi), a cab driver whose power basically boils down to "body changes to best keep his ass alive"
• Banshee (Caleb Landry Jones), a guy who looks like a cross been Ron Weasley and Carrot Top (and I mean that in the best possible way) who can emit high-frequency screams

We also get a surprise cameo from Wolverine, who is the last mutant who Xavier and Erik try to recruit. This leads to the following conversation, which I swear I in no way altered or exaggerated

Xavier: Hello, I'm Charles Xavier and this is Erik Lensherr
Wolverine: Go fuck yourselves

The teens are left together in the CIA facility, where they make jokes, choose their codenames, destroy stuff with their powers, dance, and generally act like a bunch of bored kids with superpowers. This whole scene also has a total John Hughes vibe, and I kept waiting for them to write an essay about how they're a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal.

These shenanigans come to an end when Moira, Xavier, and Erik head off to follow a lead for Shaw and Shaw, in turn, kills everyone in the facility before giving the kids the stereotypical "Join me and be royalty" speech. Angel becomes the stereotypical traitor and the kids make the stereotypical plea for her to reconsider. Darwin and Havok also make an attempt to fight Shaw off, which results in Darwin going kablooey.

So all in all, things have not been going well for this lot. Xavier moves them to his mansion and we get another montage, this time of training

• Xavier sets up his father's bomb shelter as what is basically an early training room. He gets Havok to try to focus his powers on blowing up naked manikins
• Hank and Xavier try to teach Banshee how to use his sonic screams to fly. This proves unsuccessful when they push him out a window. It is far more successful when Magneto pushes him off of a nearby satellite dish
• Erik lectures Raven on the Importance of Being Herself
• Xavier and Hank have various talks on the importance of him (Hank) coming to terms with the animal side that his mutation brings. We've seen no evidence of an animal side, but whatever. Hank also continues work on his cure, while the audience screams at him "You idiot!"
• Xavier teaches Magneto on the importance of serenity unlocking more of his power than anger. There's a lot of tears and use of the phrase "my friend" and if Xavier/Magneto was popular before now, I imagine it's gone through the roof

All of this reaches an epic climax when John F. Kennedy announces a blockade to keep the Russians from setting up missiles in Cuba. Apparently this is all Shaw's Master Plan - through the Cuban missile crisis, he hopes to launch World War III, which will wipe out humans and let Nazis mutants rule supreme. Meanwhile, back at our subplot, Hank has finished his cure and offers it to Raven. Now going under the codename Mystique, she refuses. Hank makes the rather dick move of saying that her blue-skinned form will never be considered beautiful. Shame the internet wasn't around at that point, because ten minutes on Google would more than prove that there are people who find a blue-skinned, scaly woman to be attractive. Regardless, Hank uses the cure on himself and, predictably, it backfires. Now blue-furred and feline, Hank has a bit of a freak out, although he is kind enough to provide his team mates with a bullet-proof vests and a sonic jet (which he pilots).

This pretty much is where the film hits the climax. One of the Russian ships, hijacked by Azazel (who killed the entire crew), nearly breaks the blockade line. Before the Americans can fire, Xavier mindjacks a Russian sailor to blow up the ship, saving the day. Magnet then lifts Shaw's entire fucking submarine out of the ocean and manages to drop it on a nearby island. Thanks to Riptide's tornados, the jet also drops there.

We then get the usual part where everyone splits up and either fights or advances the plot. While the X-men fight Shaw's mutants, Erik heads into Shaw's submarine and interrupts Shaw's plan to absorb the...erm nuclear core of the vessel to blow the area to kingdom come (just...roll with it). He purloins Shaw's dorky-looking helmet and then confesses that he agrees with Shaw - mutants are superior and humanity must make way for them. However, Shaw killed his mother, so he won't be joining up with him. Instead, Erik kills Shaw by sending a coin through Shaw's head like a quarter through a piggybank. As my brother pointed out, the Jewish guy kills someone with money. Yeah.

Erik exits the submarine and we get another climax, this time with the Russians and Americans agreeing to nuke the island and kill the mutants on it. Erik stops the missiles and goes to throw them back at the ships, but loses his focus when Moira tries to shoot him. He defects the bullets and one hits Xavier. Cue one of the most slash-worthy moments in cinema, as Erik cradles Xavier and insists that it was Moira's fault and she can't be trusted. I know he means that it's because she's human, but I swear it sounds like he doesn't want his boyfriend to hook up with a girl. Finally, Erik leaves, gathering Shaw's evil mutants with him. Mystique goes with him, with Xavier's blessing. After they're all gone, Xavier moans to everyone left "I can't feel my legs".

Cue the actual end of the film. Xavier is in his iconic wheelchair, making jokes about being a professor and going bald. He and Moira kiss and she promises to not tell a soul where his mansion (soon to be a school) is. He still has to wipe her memory of their last meeting, leaving only a few fragments of their kiss. This does not impress her colleges at the CIA. Meanwhile, Erik is in costume and declares himself Magneto. Cue credits.

And that was X-men: First Class. I must admit, I was pleasantly surprised by this one. After the fumbling of X3 and X-men Origins: Wolverine (which was entertaining, but not nearly reaching up to the first two films), my expectations for this weren't very high. I had hopes for it, but then I also had hopes for Beastly and we all know how that piece of work turned out. All in all though, I left the theater quite satisfied.

The first thing that I'll say is that yes, I'm well aware that liberties were taken with continuity, both in regards to the source material and the movie series as a whole. By this point, it's pretty much a given that a movie based on something like the X-men comics will take liberties (for example yes, I'm well aware that Havok is Scott's younger brother). In regards to the movie series, there were surprisingly fewer continuity errors than I anticipated. The few that there were (Cerebro being built by Hank instead of Erik and Xavier and a human Hank showing up in X2 being the main offenders) were minor enough that it was easy enough to put on the MST3K hat and look past them.

Plotwise, the first two acts of the movie held together quite well. The backstories of the main characters and how it all tied them together was easy enough to keep track of, and the scripted avoided the mistake X3 made of shoving too many comic book plots together. The final part, where they all fight for and against the Cuban missile crisis was the only part where I'd say things got a little snarled, but even that was more of a case of the climax dragging on a tad longer than necessary than it being needlessly complex. There's one goal for the main plot and the movie pushes the characters steadily towards it instead of meandering.

I must confess that I was slightly less than impressed in regards to several of the subplots. Like I mentioned in the recap, I got the feeling that they were going for some man versus animal thing in regards to Hank McCoy, but it really came across as rather forced considering that Hank only ever acts like a shy dude with abnormally large feet. He only really acts animalistic once, and that's after he's transformed into his Beast form. I could understand if they were going for the idea of expanding on him fighting his animal nature after transforming, but like I said, it only really comes up once before he goes back to acting like his regular self. I will admit here and now that I suspect a bit of my disappointment is from bias. I was a huge fan of Kelsy Grammer's Beast, and felt that his performance was one that nailed the duel nature of the character perfectly. So I am not saying that Nicholas Holt gave a bad performance. I just feel that after the first Beast, this one was a little lacking.

I did, however, feel that the subplot involving Magneto encouraging Mystique to embrace her true self was well done, as well as the idea that Xavier and Mystique lived like brother and sister for most of their lives. In general, I loved those three characters the best and I honestly felt that their development over the course of the movie was the most interesting and well-handled. When the movie starts out, Erik is a broken, well-intended extremist, Xavier is a bit of a playboy, and Mystique is a sweet but insecure young woman. None of them are exactly like their future selves (that is, their selves from the original trilogy), but you can see the seeds of their older personalities there. Magneto in particular was impressive. At the end, when he gives his "Join and rule the world" speech, I could honestly see shades of Ian McClellan peeking out from under the helmet. I was disappointed that Mystique didn't get a little closer to her kickass future self, mainly because she does very little actual ass kicking in the movie, but then I have heard that sequels are on the way, so perhaps there's still hope.

As for the other X-men, they were rather one-note. Banshee was the goofy comic relief. Havok was the broken bad boy who had the dangerous powers he could angst over. Angel was the toughened chick who did what she had to to survive. Darwin was the over-powered one who was briefly a mentor-type and then died to prove how bad things were (which I was rather peeved at, because for as little screen time as he got, Darwin really did grow on me). Still, the acting was enjoyable enough, if only because of the montage training scenes. I also really appreciated how, besides Hank McCoy and Mystique, the other mutants were ones that weren't featured in other movies. It really was nice to see some of the lesser-used characters being put front-and-center.

On the villainous end of things, we have Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw being fantastically evil. Why is he evil? He just is! Well, he figures mutants are the next step and he ought to kill off all humans to kick off his Third Reich mutant empire, but that's pretty much a stock motive for these sorts of villains. Lounging around with Angel and Emma Frost, sipping drinks in his fancy submarine, Shaw pretty much oozes all of the cheese and charm of a Bond villain. He really is one despicable bastard. Riptide and Azazel don't really get a ton of lines or explanation, besides being Those Two Bad Guys. Riptide in particular was just sort of...there, except when they needed him to blow something down. Azazel did have the redeeming value of being extremely badass with his teleportation and knives. As with Mystique, I do have my fingers crossed for more from them in a possible sequel.
Finally, and this is just a personal thing that I loved, but I felt that the continuity nods and cameos were well done. I mentioned above how they brought in Wolverine, but there are other things, like Xavier briefly mentioning that one Mr. Stryker is thinking about his son William, or Mystique temporarily aging herself by turning into her Rebecca Romijn Stamos form from X2. They don't linger or harp on those little things, and it really is fun to see.

All in all, X-men: First Class is worth a view. Where it ranks in comparison to the other four films will be up to you to decide, of course, but it still is fun and adds something new to the series.

Note: X-men: First Class is property of 20th Century Fox and Marvel. That is all

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Comments

[idahophoenix.livejournal.com]

"This whole scene also has a total John Hughes vibe, and I kept waiting for them to write an essay about how they're a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal." What a perfect description! I love it.

I kind of adored the movie because Magento/Xavier--ah sweet anguished romance. I am completely irritated that Darwin was killed off, as he seemed like the most interesting of the supporting characters.

Thanks for the fun re-cap.

[zelda-queen.livejournal.com]

"What a perfect description! I love it."

Thanks! XD That's all I could think, from when they were sitting and talking to when they were running through the hallways from the princi - erm, Shaw. It was so The Breakfast Club!

"I am completely irritated that Darwin was killed off, as he seemed like the most interesting of the supporting characters."

It might be me being overly gushy, but Darwin seemed to be the one of the group who was the bravest, or at least the most willing to fight. He was the one who said that they should leave the room to try to fight off Shaw, he was the one who stood in front of the others protectively, and he was the one who came up with the plan to save Angel. I suppose they killed him off because otherwise it would be too hard to find some way to limit him in battle (much like how they kept incapacitating Xavier), but it really was annoying.

You're welcome! ^_^

[idahophoenix.livejournal.com]

I want the video of that scene set to music from Breakfast Club.

Perhaps they killed Darwin off because he is Black. The people of color (well except for the Blue Beast who we know is an adorable white nerd beneath the blue) all end up with Magneto in the end.) Maybe only white men could be naive enough to think that the world might eventually be safe for mutants. But your brave theory is much nicer---although why he didn't just turn into a volcano and survive the attack I don't know.

Ok...thinking way too much about all this on a Tuesday morning before work...;)

[zelda-queen.livejournal.com]

I want to do that as soon as the DVD comes out. XD I also want to set that scene with Shaw as a Nazi ruler to "Be Prepared". When I saw him standing in front of the army, I expected them to start singing "It's great that we'll so be connected with a king who'll be all-time adored!"

Eh, I don't think they actively said "Let's kill off the only black guy", but they didn't seem as aware of the...erm, implications as they could have been (especially given how Angel joins Shaw).

I have to admit, when Darwin first went over to Shaw, I had this crazy, very brief idea of what he'd do. I thought he'd pretend to sympathize with and join Shaw, but that he'd actually leave with him. My idea was that he'd be able to keep an eye on Angel and bail her out if things went bad, but then he'd also be able to spy and tell the X-men where Shaw was holed up. After all, I'm pretty sure by that point that they knew that Shaw was the guy Xavier and Erik were after.

And he did turn into some rocky form shortly before he went all explodey. Actually, that would have been pretty interesting too, if he was forced to spend the movie in a rock-like state. It would be a way to keep him from being god-moded (he'd have to be careful not to take much force, lest he break apart) and it would put Beast's "My feet look like hands" wangst to shame.

Hey, that's the best time to think about stuff. ;) Actually, I tend to do my thinking at work. I have to be carefully I don't start smiling and giggling randomly in front of a customer. XD

[idahophoenix.livejournal.com]

:) I'll eagerly await that video. Great comments.

Btw, what is your next book you're going to spork? I might actually read it for once--I'm always looking at your posts and thinking this looks fascinating, wish I know what the hell they were talking about lol!

[zelda-queen.livejournal.com]

Aw, thanks! XD Yeah, it'll be up there with my plans to wait for BD to come out and use clips of Edward set to the song "Gaston" ^_^

Next? Hmm, well after Betrayed I'm heading on to Chosen and after Hush, Hush, I'll be taking on the sequel, Crescendo (lord preserve me on that one, apparently it gets even WORSE!) It'll be some time until both, but Chosen will probably be coming up sooner.

Sure, feel free! :D But I highly recommend that you get the books out of your nearest library, if at all possible. Given the quality of them...yeah. ^^;

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/There's a lot of tears and use of the phrase "my friend" and if Xavier/Magneto was popular before now, I imagine it's gone through the roof/

Oh, believe me, you don't know the half of it. Long before this movie came out, I even heard people say that Dumbledore/Grindelwald was this generation's Xavier/Magneto. So, yes, this ship has been sailing for a *long* time.

[zelda-queen.livejournal.com]

Ha ha, yeah, I know it. XD I don't think I've ever seen it ever made so blatant in any medium before though. Then again, I haven't read all of the X-men comics...

[(Anonymous)]

I have always been a fan of the old X-men comics. So originally I thought that the plot for X-men first class was awful, but I went to see it anyway. I must admit, it was better then I thought it would be. The only thing that really annoyed me was Sebastian Shaw.

In the comics Shaw is a really awesome villain. In comparison the movie version came up way lacking. He was just so lame, it was rather disappointing.

[parrinoyed.livejournal.com]

I couldn't comment before, having not seen the movie, not any of the other movies--and for that matter, not knowing anything about the comics.

(Why I qualify more as a nerd than a geek ;D)

But I just saw it over the weekend, and I must say that I had to keep reminding myself that Charles Xavier was not the villain. You must admit, he hits a lot of the common characteristics: obsessed with genetics, people 'collector', telepathic, rich. Okay, a little factitious. But it turns out I have a great deal of trouble with telepathic characters, when they are capable of controlling others to any degree, or read minds. Idk, I just got squicked, both during this movie and, as I type, the intro to the new series Alphas.

Cue one of the most slash-worthy moments in cinema

YES. I saw it, and sometimes I can't even find pre-relationships in canon!

[zelda-queen.livejournal.com]

Xavier in the movie didn't bother me tremendously, but then again I don't really find James McAvoy very threatening (perhaps because the first role I ever saw him in was Mr. Tumnus XD) Still, I can understand why it would be squicky. I feel the same way about Patch.

Oh I know, I'm the same! XD Keep in mind that I actually missed the lesbian subtext in "Rebecca" the first time through, and I saw the climax where Magneto was totally jealous and refusing to let Moira touch Xavier and I just laughed. Apparently it *was* on purpose. XD