X-Men: First Class
Running Time: 2 hours, 12 minutes
Rating: PG-13
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Important Disclaimer:
As much as I love comic-book-based movies and cartoons, I have never been an avid reader of comics and cannot pretend to be an expert on X-Men and what is and is not canonical based on the comics. So is this movie faithful to the comics? I don’t know and won’t pretend to know. I watched the movie thinking two things: 1) I’d really like to read a bunch of X-Men comics 2) I really wish I knew more about the Cuban Missile Crisis. If only my degree were in history instead of English, I’m sure I’d have tons of fun creating and teaching a course called American History X (Men). (Seriously, I was mentally crafting a syllabus as I watched.)
Quick Impressions:
I loved this movie. It’s the best I’ve seen so far this summer. Matthew Vaughn impressed me twice before with Stardust (which I liked a million times more on the second viewing), and Kick Ass (which I can’t bring myself to watch a second time). Since learning that Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence were in the cast, I’ve been extremely excited about seeing X-Men: First Class, and it did not disappoint for a second.
What sets it apart from other blockbusters so far this summer is the thoughtfully written story which not only makes sense but also requires the viewer to pay attention. (Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not comparing this movie to Mulholland Dr. or saying it’s like Memento where you must stay glued to the screen or risk getting completely lost. But some thought is required.) Last month, I saw Thor and enjoyed it tremendously, but following it required no thinking whatsoever. You could, in fact, wander in twenty minutes late and take short naps at random moments of your choice and still not only understand what was happening but accurately guess what was about to happen next. In X-Men, both the plot and the characters were far more complex. Until I saw the movie, I didn’t realize what’s been missing from the previously released blockbusters this summer. Fittingly, for a film that shows the invention of a device called Cerebro, X-Men: First Class requires you to use your brain.
An incredibly satisfying origin story, the film manages to deliver in-jokes that actually make the audience laugh and to dramatize the moments that fans of previous X-Men movies have always wanted to see on screen. It does not, however, belittle the viewer with heavy-handed nods and winks thrown in clumsily with no role to play in advancing the story. (“I’m Owen Lars. This is my girlfriend, Beru. Well, bye.”) For the most part, the acting is excellent, the characters gripping and complex. As rarely happens in a summer blockbuster, the plot makes sense and not only allows for lots of action but—even better—makes that action meaningful. Just the other day, my husband and I were comparing the differences between Xavier and Magneto to those between Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. Watching First Class really makes you want to sit and talk afterward—not about the film’s weaknesses, but about society’s.
The Good, the Great, and the Slightly Inadequate:
Somebody put a lot of thought into this story. Everything comes to a head during a climactic battle at sea at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Military men who give orders meant to be executed without question are sailing toward each other on submarines (made of metal) carrying a nuclear payload (energy) to be delivered by means of torpedoes (also made of metal). The movie offers the most logical and compelling explanation for the Cuban Missile Crisis that I’ve ever heard.
The film also introduces a number of fascinating characters and actually lets us watch them develop.The movie shows Erik Lehnsherr’s transformation into Magneto as it happens. It’s very hard not to root for Magneto. For one thing, as portrayed by rising star Michael Fassbender he’s incredibly handsome and charismatic. For another, how can we not feel for the boy who suffered such a horrible trauma? His background alone makes him a sympathetic. (Revenge may not be noble, but it’s profoundly human. By actually achieving his vengeance, Erik seems to rid himself of the final vestiges of his human impulses. Lehnsherr loved his mother, an un-evolved human. Magneto loves only mutants.) But he gives Mystique permission to love herself, and we love him for that, too.
Mystique (formerly Raven) is a character whose complexity I never appreciated until this movie. Jennifer Lawrence portrays her expertly, proving that her superb, Oscar-nominated turn in last year’s Winter’s Bone was no fluke. Her frustration, anger, and conflicted passion come through even in her silences, and she delivers her lines with an understated mix of rage, pain, and resignation that endears her to the audience almost immediately. It’s refreshing to see an action movie that includes a well-written and well-acted, strong female character. She also serves as a kind of foil to McAvoy’s Charles Xavier. In their interactions, we see flaws in the likeable Xavier that we might never notice otherwise. This movie does a brilliant job of portraying Lehnsherr, Raven, and Xavier as real, complex, multi-faceted individuals all with believable weaknesses and likeable strengths.
Strong characters like these are another reason I say that the movie forces you to think. There are no easy answers when it comes to the issues raised by X-Men. Magneto despises non-mutants for treating him differently, and yet who is his mortal enemy, and why does he hate this person? Raven is a young woman who wants desperately to love herself but for some reason needs permission—permission she can never get from Xavier, who always insists that she will embarrass them by showing her true form, for all his philosophical talk about the wonders of genetic mutation. With Magneto’s affirmation, Raven finds the strength to be herself and reveals a major weakness in Xavier—a telepath who can read the thoughts of almost everyone in the world yet fails time and again to understand the heart of the one person who is closest to him personally. Who is the hero here?
On the other hand, it’s easy to spot the villain. The movie’s major failing may be that the main antagonist of this piece is woefully underdeveloped. The film devotes itself to the development of future villain Magneto but fails to give us the slightest clue as to why Sebastian Shaw, played capably by Kevin Bacon is so all-consumingly evil and bent on world domination. The answer seems to be that he is just a narcissistic jerk. For all his talk of not hurting his own kind, Shaw is never nice to anyone. The scene in which we learn his plan is particularly telling. The whole plan is presented so simply, so cartoonishly. Is Shaw’s thinking really that simplistic? Perhaps it is. His actions certainly are. The character seems to exist simply as a plot device. What would bring together men with such different life philosophies as Xavier and Lehnsherr? What was responsible for all the tensions, miscommunications, and accidental casualties of the Cold War? Why a villain named Sebastian Shaw, of course!
That the U.S. and Soviet government’s final solution for dealing with the mutants is equally simplistic and thoughtlessly evil only emphasizes that while Shaw’s character lacks complexity, the movie does not. Finding the moral of the story seems easy at first. But trying to express that moral as a coherent statement forces the audience to acknowledge the moral’s elusive and ever-changing nature. What can be done? What should be done? What must be done?
Hmm.
Best Action Sequence:
The most effective action scene comes at the end, and in this way, I found the movie remarkably refreshing. There are action movies that seem to abandon the story entirely by the end and spend the last forty-five minutes just blowing things up in exciting ways. (Transformers comes to mind.) “When all else fails blow everything up,” is not a bad formula for cinematic success since everybody likes a big finish.
But this big finish actually brought the story to a satisfying conclusion instead of just eradicating the bad guys in the most expensive way possible. Plot advancement and character development did not grind to a halt to make room for action. All three happened at the same time, and concluded in a remarkably satisfying battle at sea.
Another highly enjoyable action sequence was the training montage, which not only involved lots of action and comedy, but also showed each young mutant on the road to self-discovery and self-control.
Best Joke:
Aside from a great moment by a surprise guest, the funniest moment in the movie was the final “trick” Xavier showed to Oliver Platt’s Man in Black Suit, impeccably timed and highly amusing.
Best Scene:
There’s not a bad scene in this movie, but my personal favorite was the ending on the beach. The last lines Xavier uttered for some reason made me start to weep. I could not believe that I started to cry because it’s not like what he said wasn’t something I expected and saw coming a mile away. But for some reason I cried, anyway. And I liked Xavier more in that moment than I had at any previous point in the film. Another favorite moment of mine—Mystique’s response to McCoy’s serum. Her storyline had been building to this moment, and the climax was quite satisfying. It was the moment when she decided quite literally who she was and whom she was in bed with.
Best Surprise:
A cameo by an X-Men favorite got the loudest laugh from the audience (and also probably helped the movie to get a PG-13 rating).
Best Scene Visually:
Instead of singling out a particular scene, I’d like to mention the repeated use of mirrors and reflective surfaces throughout the movie. Much could be said about this on a symbolic level. I’ll just say that the choice to use so many reflective surfaces drives home the fact that the movie works very well as a whole. Every component contributes to its overall meaning and effectiveness.
The Performances:
I’ve already raved about Michael Fassbender as Magneto and Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique. As Charles Xavier, James McAvoy (who has performed capably in so many Oscar-worthy movies but for some reason forever remains Narnia’s Mr. Tumnus in my mind) gives a performance that is almost as great as Fassbender and Lawrence, but not quite. Still, he plays the role so capably that it’s hard to imagine anyone else doing it so well.
I was also particularly impressed with Rose Byrne as Moira MacTaggert. The only thing I remember seeing Byrne in before was Get Him to the Greek. Based on those two performances alone, I must say she has amazing range and brought real depth to one of the movie’s more underwritten characters.
I really liked Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw. He played the character so well that I honestly forgot at times that he was Kevin Bacon. That’s never happened to me with Kevin Bacon before. For some reason, usually he sticks out like a sore thumb, as if he’s in the movie only to challenge you to play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon during lulls in the story. Maybe because this movie had no particular lulls, and maybe because he just really got into this character, I never played Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon and thought of him as Shaw first, Bacon, only as an afterthought.
Watching Nicholas Hoult (Hank McCoy/Beast) flirting awkwardly with Raven, I kept thinking to myself, Did he think he was auditioning for Superman and end up in this movie by mistake? He so reminded me of Christopher Reeve’s Clark Kent pretending to be awkward as he chatted up Lois, to the extent that I half-expected him to start calling her Lois. And the first thing my husband said to me after the movie was, “Who played Beast? Was that Brandon Routh?” So it wasn’t just me. I liked him, though. I liked Christopher Reeve as Clark Kent, too.
All of the young mutants were pretty engaging, actually, so I’m hoping that there will be a next movie, and that they’ll all be back for it.
January Jones as Emma Frost was the weak link acting wise. Fortunately, she didn’t have a lot to do except stand around in her underwear, and as my husband pointed out, she did that very well. She may seem wooden when she delivers her lines, but the moment she unzips her dress, you can see that, on the contrary, she’s a real girl.
The Negatives (These are a bit petty, I think, so I’m putting them at the end):
The character of Darwin raised a lot of questions, most notably, Why? (Admittedly, “Really??” kept coming up a lot, too.)
Another slight complaint—I will admit that this is a bit ridiculous and probably came about because I knew I would be writing a review. Several scenes in this movie feature foreign language and subtitles. Why is it that when it becomes necessary for most audience members to read subtitles in order to follow the plot that the characters decide to converse in rooms more intricately and ornately decorated than any others in the movie? I mean, the attention to detail in these rooms is incredible, and they’re all jam-packed with stuff. The walls are practically decorated floor to ceiling as if the set designer was incredibly excited about creating a culturally distinct space. (This is Russia! This is how rooms look here!)
My eyes naturally wanted to drink up all the details of the intricately crafted sets. Even the background noises distracted me. (Ex. Why is La Vie En Rose playing again? Are scenes featuring Kevin Bacon’s character just a dream within a dream?) And in the scene with the Swiss banker, we get that awesome visual of the guy’s concerned face reflected in a bar of gold. It’s so hard to want to read the words. And the thing is, vital information about the plot is being revealed in these foreign language exchanges. That’s all well and good when they’re very slowly delivering commonly used phrases of textbook French, but when they were speaking Russian, I had to keep reminding myself to study the set decorations on a second viewing and read the subtitles now. So if you’re an interior decorator or have ADHD, beware.
Overall:
X-Men: First Class is not only the best movie I’ve seen so far this summer, but it may also be my favorite X-Men movie ever. (I do really love X2, though, so it’s close.) Anyone who likes a thoughtful story, excellent acting, and meaningful action should buy a ticket. And—for those of you who, like me, feel overwhelmed by choices—good news! It’s not in 3D! Go!