Mania Review: X-Men: First Class - Mania.com
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  • Starring: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Kevin Bacon, January Jones, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, and Rose Byrne
  • Written by: Ashley Edward Miller, Zack Stentz, Jane Goldman, Matthew Vaughn, Sheldon Turner
  • Directed by: Matthew Vaughn
  • Studio: 20th Century Fox
  • Run Time: 131 minutes
  • Rating: PG-13
  • Series:

Mania Review: X-Men: First Class

Valedictory.

By Rob Vaux     June 03, 2011


Mania reviews Matthew Vaughn's X-MEN: FIRST CLASS(2011).
© 20th Century Fox
“Hey wasn’t that part cool when…?”
 
“Do you remember that bit where they…?”
 
“Something else I really dug was…”
 
You can use a lot of formal terms to describe why you feel a film works or not, but one sure sign comes with comments like these: little moments, incidental details, and bits and pieces that just tickle you to no end. The more you think about the movie, the more nifty things you find to talk about. X-Men: First Class is stuffed to the gills with nifty things, including a sharp story, strong performances, and a way of making you think even as it pumps you full of adrenaline.
 
Ostensibly, the early adventures of Charles Xavier (played here by James McAvoy) and Eric Lehnsherr /Magneto (Michael Fassbender) doesn’t hold much interest. We know where they end up, after all, and while Magneto ranks as possibly the greatest villain in all of comics, Professor X always worked better as a guiding mentor than a front-line hero. First Class nimbly scales that obstacle with a number of secret weapons, not the least of which is its 1960s setting. Early critics have noted its similarities to Connery-era James Bond pictures, and that energy grants it a unique perspective on the world of Marvel’s Merry Mutants. Lehnsherr actually shows up in Big Sean’s famous grey three-piece from Goldfinger at one point, and the overall threat – inducing the United States and Soviet Russia to destroy each other – comes straight out of the SPECTRE playbook.
 
The instigator is Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon; yes, really), sinister power-monger and leader of the secretive Hellfire Club which has designs on global domination. Mutants – men and women born with extraordinary powers – are appearing in greater and greater numbers, and Shaw envisions a future where they (and he) reign supreme. Xavier and Lehnsherr stand in his way, though both for very different reasons. First Class develops their friendship/rivalry exquisitely: Xavier – cocksure son of wealth and privilege – sees only the best in humanity, while Lehnsherr – survivor of the concentration camps – knows just how evil they can be. The former writes treatises on genetics and picks up girls with his clever mind-reading act. The latter acts as a one-man Nazi hunter: tracking down the instigators of the Holocaust and making sure they scream good and loud before they die.
 
Director Matthew Vaughn scores his biggest hits with early scenes of Lehnsherr on the prowl: honed by righteous anger and savoring his vengeance like fine wine. His motivations come into clear focus -- aided by a rich and nuanced performance from Fassbender – and at the end of the day, First Class may agree with his point of view more than Xavier’s. That sobering notion tempers the swinging 60s nostalgia without overwhelming it: shading the good times with dark shadows and providing strong moral subtext to chew on amid all the action.
 
McAvoy, for his part, matches Fassbender at every turn (as does Bacon, who couldn’t rock this scene harder if he tried), and First Class works primarily as an exquisite study of its central pair. Fast friends and instant blood brothers, each one provides the other with vital insight, yet neither deters from their opposing course. Xavier believes that mutants can set a positive example for humanity; Magneto is convinced that war is the only answer. As the threat from Shaw rises, they join forces to meet it, even though they both suspect that their alliance cannot last. Their central argument spills over into the young students they both recruit, with figures like Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) and the Beast (Nicholas Holt) debating whether or not they should assimilate with humans or stand proudly as God made them.
 
Vaughn combines their struggles with historical fact, fanciful suggestion, and details pulled straight from the comics into a supremely appealing package. The Hellfire Club makes an ideal adversary for the setting – all privileged indulgence and pop-culture fizz – which Vaughn augments with some intriguing ties to Lehnsherr’s origins. He lays down solid groundwork for mankind’s growing suspicion of mutants, while confidently establishing the basis for things like Cerebro, the X-Men’s jet, and the school in upstate New York where budding young superheroes can find a safe haven.
 
The effects-heavy action scenes do their job admirably enough, but as it turns out, Vaughn doesn’t need them. The film’s best moments come with subtle filmmaking tricks – the odd splash of water from a drinking fountain, a chilling reveal in a concentration camp office, a marvelous bit of verbal turnabout that punctuates the climax – which pile up so fast and thick you can hardly keep track of them all. From them emerges an intelligent subtext, an exciting historical adventure and another deeply respectful presentation of some deeply beloved characters. Even the closing credits are a stone groove, mixing one part Saul Bass with two parts Maurice Binder to keep us seated until the lights come on again. (There’s no Easter egg after the credits, but keep your eye peeled for a few fun cameos.)
 
The only real complaint comes with overall continuity… which is a complete hash, but – to be fair – got screwed up good and proper by earlier X-Men movies. You have to accept the fact that Emma Frost is older here than she was in Wolverine, despite taking place fifteen years earlier; that key meetings alluded to in the first film now have no basis in fact; and that the whole “Professor X in a wheelchair” timeline  will give you a headache if you try to wrap your head around it. First Class slaps a few Band-Aids on the problem, but simply can’t do its job if it tries to fit everything in properly. Rather than destroy itself in an effort to explain it all away, it simply cuts the Gordian knot: concentrating on telling a good story first and worrying about how it all fits in later. It’s a wise policy, and though it leaves a few lingering questions, better those than ones like “why did this movie suck so much?”
 
No fear on that front, however. “Suck” couldn’t touch this bad boy with a 10-foot pole, and while I remain a defender of Wolverine and X3, you can sense the palpable relief most people will feel at the franchise returning to form. Wait, did I say “returning?” First Class actually surpasses its predecessors, making it the best of the five X-Men films so far. With Thor and now First Class, this is turning into a banner year for Marvel adaptations. Someone remind Captain America to bring its A-game, because the bar just rose a little higher.
 
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raa2001 6/3/2011 12:05:35 AM

I can't wait to see this after work tomorrow!

yanksfan216 6/3/2011 12:45:14 AM

 I need  a post where I can leave my sequel thoughts. and it was freaking amazingly well done. so good. im going again friday night

ActionMovieGod 6/3/2011 12:58:23 AM

This movie is holly shit good.Id say its the best Xmen movie since X2! =)

SarcasticCaveman 6/3/2011 1:02:37 AM

 I don't have to accept anything when it comes to continuity...in my world, Wolverine never happened...sorry, but yes, I did think it was THAT awful.

goatartist 6/3/2011 1:05:38 AM

Just got home from the midnight showing and Rob, you're right, I didn't ask myself, "why did this movie suck so much", because anyone who's read a halfway decent X-men comic, or even watched the Original Cartoon series, knows what a decent  treatment of this franchise looks like. Aronofsky probably peeled out of the Fox studio parking lots and never looked back, haha, what a joke. A-list directors want nothing to do with these shit screenplays. So they get these up and coming cats who just can't knock it out of the park. Fox wants a puppet, not a playmaker.

I am astounded at Rob's fickleness when it comes to celebrating mediocrity. A "D" for the Hangover and an "A" for this Turd? Really? Fox again knows how to polish a proper piece of crap, which is the only way to describe the absolutely laughability of this pathetic attempt at an even remotely engaging screenplay. They (FOX) leans so heavily on the inherant coolness of the source material to make these recent (post X2) films work and we keep giving them the benefit of the doubt. This must stop. This stuff is stinky cheese. Very vanilla. God give me the Wachowski Brothers, some true grit, and Cable leveling a building with his BFG, I beg you!

This film opens up with a shot for shot recreation of the opening scene of the first movie, only with a new, yet completely identical set and a new and equally arbitrary young actor playing the adolecent Erik. Why not just use the concetration camp footage from ten years ago? It was better anyway (immediately illustrating, within the opening ten seconds, in the purest sense, Vaughn's inferior talent when compared to Singer). And yes, the token black mutant is the first to die. Darwin...anyone...anyone? Who cares...

Fassbender saves this film and brings a youthful energy and Magnetism ( If you please) which we all secretly missed when Gandalf was cast in the originals. He is a force to be reckoned with and is  physically built to play a comic book villian, but you can't help but feel sorry for him ( and McAvoy), because other than a cool Helmet, his talents are just wasted on crap writing, a seemingly minor-league cheapskate budget (again, some of the effects are embarassing) and unqualified and uninspired directing. Bacon did his thing, but we never got to see Shaw really do his thing. I know the day needs to be saved, but the whole thing smelled of copout. Other than the submarine lift ( which was graphically desplayed in all it's glory in the trailer) there were no stand out set pieces.

Yes, there were some cool moments, but not enough to warrant an A, not even close!!!!!!!!!! I applaud Vaughn for coming close to the Blue and Yellow suits, but he balked when presented with the opportunity to really do something bold and special. The campiness bordered on Shumacher territory at points, no joke.

Rob, you're hands down the best Genre reviewer on the web, but you let you're guard down too easily when your expectations are low and trust me, mine were low...really low...Thor low. A really, really shiny turd this movie was. Won't touch an X-men film again with a ten foot pole.

goatartist 6/3/2011 1:08:16 AM

 ...maybe...sorry for the Tome.

Kraks 6/3/2011 1:43:52 AM

goat, you may have had some decent points to make, but you ruined  your credibility in the end.  First Class cannot even be compared to Schumacher's crap.  Quite frankly, nothing can. 

For my part, I enjoyed it and definitely got the Bond feel out of it also.  Fassbender and Bacon made the film for me.  I think if anything they just made a few casting errors.  Mystique was horrible as was Havoc, but not as much. 

Bacon's work alone is worth seeing again.  He's truly sinister in a very suave way. 

 

I give it an A- also.  I definitely believe it to be the best of the X-Men films, but I sitll expect MORE from them, sooner or later.  Someone could make a fortune with a real writer/director attached to this and still be able to sleep at night.  Instead, Fox makes a fortune then has to look over their shoulders constantly for that one rabid fan like goat that will do them in if given the chance.  :P

Kraks 6/3/2011 1:51:16 AM

Last thing...

 

Let it be known that equating anything in movies to Joel Schumacher is the equivalent of using the term "NAZI" to describe anyone in a modern political discussion (unless they just happen to have a Swastika on them anywhere, goosestep, and have a thin moustache under their nose).

TheMovieGuy28 6/3/2011 2:36:04 AM

everyone is entitled to their opinion, and if I'da known this was up already I'd be writing a much longer review.

 

I disagree WHOLEHEARTEDLY with what goatarist said.

First Class was bloddy brilliant, and is MIIIIILES better than Thor. One of the best origin stories period.

Not the best. One of the best. No Batman Begins, but every bit as close as Iron Man was, minus the deadpan humor of RDJ.

 

I'll say it again. I predict a 100 million opening for this film. Averaging 30-35 a day won't be a problem

kennynine 6/3/2011 2:58:13 AM

It was OK. Thought the special effects were sub par. Just comparing Mistique's transformation from blue form to human to the earlier films shows what I am talking about. Don't understand why things looked so fake with such a big budget.

Better than X3. But X2 is still the best in my opinion.

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