Review: X-Men: First Class

Grade: A-

Good: Slick, intelligent spy-fi with superheroes instead of super-spies that puts a very cool twist on the comic book film genre. Uniformly great performances, with Michael Fassbender’s Magneto and Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique as the high points.

Bad: Some of concessions to comic design legacies; Can delve into melodrama on occasion.

Ugly: The fact that the last three films under the Marvel banner can’t even compare to First Class.

X-Men: First Class is a spectacular gamble. None of the popular X-Men take center stage. The few characters who are familiar to audiences look completely different than their older, more memorable incarnations. And, perhaps the biggest challenge, it is set in a time well before many of its target demographic were born.

Yet, First Class is an exceptional superhero film that exceeds not only the three previous installments of the franchise, but it easily surpasses many of the superhero flicks crowding the multiplexes these days. Smart, compelling and respectful of the source material’s central themes, First Class is everything hardcore comic geeks and casual moviegoers could ever want from a superhero film.

Matthew Vaughn puts on an absolute clinic in the art of properly making a superhero film that clicks on all levels with First Class. Tracing the origins of the X-Men before well-known mainstays Wolverine, Storm, Cyclops and Rogue ever joined, First Class follows a just-out-of-grad school Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) as he begins his life-defining quest to seek out beings with mutant powers and bring them together to face an unimaginable threat.

The threat(s) in First Class are far more tangible—relatively—than any villainous force outside of Christopher Nolan’s Batman films. Set just before the Cuban Missile Crisis, an event that defined John F. Kennedy’s presidency and set the stage for a near-30 year cold war between the U.S. and Russia, the first generation of X-Men deal not only with coming to terms with the world that hates and fears them, but a world being nudged to the brink of nuclear war by the subversive Sebastian Shaw— played with a delightfully affable and polished smugness by Kevin Bacon—and his proto-Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, the Hellfire Club.

While the burgeoning Cold War drives much First Class’ plot, the heart of the movie is the fragile relationship between friends-and-soon-to-be-rivals Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender), better known as Magneto. First Class fills in the blanks of how Xavier and Magneto came to be such bitter enemies by looking at the precipitating events behind their disparate philosophies. Between the two, Magneto, or Erik for the purposes of this film, gets a superb level of development, far outpacing the attention given to Xavier. Erik, a survivor of the Holocaust, begins the film as a man on a mission of revenge fueled by haunting memories the inhuman punishment of the Nazis and the heinous actions of the one of their less than ethical doctors.

Fassbender does a superb job of capturing Erik’s edgy intensity, releasing it in explosive bursts of physicality and fiery dialogue that will easily convert viewers to ranking Magneto just below the Joker as most badass comic book villain. Conversely, McAvoy breathes an ample amount of life into Xavier, making a more of charming cad with the best of intentions. Suffice to say, this is not yet the stuffy bald guy with the bitchin' wheelchair. He’s on his way, but, as a man just out of college, he’s just as interested in chatting up the ladies and getting plotzed at the local pub, all of which come of wonderfully through McAvoy’s mellow charisma.

As one of the most equitable X-Men films since…well, ever, First Class gives solid screen time to develop ‘supporting characters’ like Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), pre-Beast fur Hank McCoy (Nicholas Hoult) and Emma Frost (January Jones). Behind Xavier and Erik, First Class belongs to Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique. Playing the shape-shifting temptress when she was still young enough to be somewhat innocent, Lawrence gives Mystique the right balance of optimism, shame and resentment that will turn her into the scene-sealer of the earlier—chronologically later—X-films. Together with Hoult’s understated performance, Lawrence tackles the unavoidable, angst at the core of every X-Men story, but does so with a fire that renders Mystique's plight—the struggle to be respected as normal despite looking like an overgrown Smurfette—far more believable than a pretty girl with a skunk stripe and opera gloves ever could.

Even Shaw’s compatriots, including sly telepathic seductress Emma Frost and Satan’s night crawler, Azazel (Jason Flemyng), get more into the action than any of the ‘evil’ mutants from the previous X-flicks, with each getting some great scenes that highlight their abilities. It’s a testament to Vaughn that he includes so many under-the-radar characters as more than cameos (though there are a few choice cameos). With some uniformly dignified turns across the board, these characters, who surely would have been rendered unbearable by another director (cough*Ratner*cough), come off even cooler than they do in the comics.

The performances in First Class are anchored by Vaughn’s—who has now delivered the most entertaining and thematically cohesive X-film to date—deft direction. Vaughn positions First Class as pure spy fiction with mutants instead of possibly super-powered super-spies like James Bond. In grafting superheroes onto a specific narrative genre, Vaughn succeeds where other superhero directors have failed by using super-powered characters as part of a larger story rather than forcing the audience to simply marvel (sorry) at seeing these characters on screen behind a flimsy concept.

Despite a two hour plus run time, Vaughn keeps the flick tight and focused like his last turn at superheroes, Kick Ass. What begins as somewhat amorphous and deliberate quickly gains shape and immediacy, as the players are drawn together—on both sides—to face common enemies. That patience in a director is rare in superhero films, but it bears excellent results in First Class. Vaughn allows the audience time to absorb each characters story motivation completely before thrusting the events of the plot forward, and even offers an extended training sequence that finally shows the X-Men learning to use their powers.

Visually, Vaughn captures the essence of the sixties with a naturalistic touch that avoids overstatement or parody. The world of First Class looks and feels very real for about 95% of the film. It is only when Vaughn incorporates some of the more outrageous design elements that the film loses some visual weight. Actually, it’s only one element that hurts the film--Magneto’s goofy helmet. Even in the comics that thing looks silly. The helmet aside, the other design elements lifted from the comics--such as the X-Men uniforms--look better here than perhaps any superhero outfit on screen. Flight suits with a simple yellow stripe down the middle? Genius.

Vaughn also stages some superb action scenes that somehow make people waving their hands and touching their temple appear compelling. Trust me when I say the money shot of Erik force choking a submarine is not the only highlight. Azazel’s teleporting attack at the midway point, Erik’s attacks on his tormentors, and the final showdown off the shore of Cuba are all well worth the price admission.

First Class, as mentioned earlier, is a major gamble. Many of the characters are unfamiliar and that may keep less adventurous audiences at bay, despite the power of the X-men brand. Additionally, there some racy content in the form of a mutant sex club that parents may need to be leery of, but it’s truly not as bad as it sounds. However, the emphasis on the political strife of the early Cold War may be too distant for some viewers. The performances, in spite of their general excellence, fall into mild melodramatics. While it’s expected to a degree, the melodrama can be unbearable to more discerning tastes. Overall, the missteps don’t even equal a fraction of the successes with this flick, and it’s not an overstatement at all to start proclaiming this as the best X-Men film. Period.

Marvel take note. The one franchise not in your control has easily surpassed your last three films. You might want to do something about that.