Review: X-MEN FIRST CLASS

Last Updated on Wednesday, 15 June 2011 00:05 Written by John Wednesday, 15 June 2011 00:03

So I finally had a chance to see X-MEN FIRST CLASS, and I have to agree with a lot of people that this is the best of the X-MEN films. I won’t go as far as saying this is the best marvel film, but it is definitely up there.  Matthew Vaughn hit a home run with this one by making it a period piece and introducing film viewers to characters not as widely known as Cyclops, Storm and Wolverine.  Before I go into full detail with my review let me state one thing...Take what you might have learned and gathered from the previous four X-men films (I’m including the Wolverine film in this one) AND TOSS IT OUT THE WINDOW!!!!!! To me this film is a complete reboot of the franchise. So here is my review….

At a German concentration camp in occupied Poland during 1944, young Erik Lensherr is separated from his parents by Nazi guards. In his rage, the young Erik bends a metal gate until a guard knocks him unconscious (the same footage that's in the first X-Men movie). Scientist Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon), who has observed this through a window, calls Erik up to see him. Placing a metal coin on a desk, he orders Erik to use his magnetism power to move it. When Erik cannot, despite his best efforts, Shaw shoots and kills his mother in front of him. In a fit of rage, Erik out-of-control magnetic power kills the two guards and destroys two rooms, much to Shaw's delight.

Around this same time half a world away in Westchester County, New York, a young Charles Xavier meets a young, shape-shifting girl named Raven, disguised as his mother, who is looking through the refrigerator for food. Xavier accuses his "mother" of being an imposter, and asks what it has done with his real mother, “as she would not make him a sandwich or hot chocolate”, at which point, Mystique shifts back to her normal, blue-skinned form. Overjoyed to meet someone else "different" like himself, he says she can come live with his family.

We now jump ahead to Switzerland in the movie's present-day of 1962, where we see a now adult Erik (Michael Fassbender) forcing a banker by ripping out one of the metal fillings in his mouth, to trace a bar of Nazi gold to Shaw's address in Argentina. He then travels to Argentina and in a tavern there encounters three former German soldiers; Erik kills the three men as he learns that Shaw has a yacht in Florida. Meanwhile, at Oxford University, Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) is publishing his thesis on mutation while his foster sister Raven (Jennifer Laurence) lives with him and works as a waitress.

Simultaneously in Las Vegas, Nevada, CIA agent Moira MacTaggart (Rose Byrne) follows U.S. Army Colonel Hendry into the Hellfire Club, where she sees Shaw, Emma Frost (January Jones), and Azazel. Shaw explains that they are mutants to the Colonel and after threatening him, Azazel disappears with the officer. After witnessing this, MacTaggart calls her boss in D.C. moments later explaining what just happened, only to be told that the Colonel is in the War Room, advocating that U.S. install nuclear missiles in Turkey.

Shaw meets with Colonel Hendry on his yacht, and refuses to give him his money, at which point the Colonel pulls out a grenade and threatens to pull the pin, but Shaw takes the grenade and pulls the pin himself, and absorbs the blast then taps Hendry, expelling the grenade's energy into the Colonel, blowing him up.

MacTaggart seeks Xavier’s advice on mutation, and takes Xavier and Raven to the CIA to convince the chief that Shaw is a threat. After convincing them that mutants exist they are to be taken to a covert facility, but first Xavier tracks down Shaw.

While Xavier & MacTaggart are on their way to Shaw, Erik attacks Shaw, and when Shaw & Frost escape in a submarine Erik tries to stop him, but Xavier stops him so that he does not drown. Erik joins Xavier and Raven at the CIA facility, where they meet a young Hank McCoy, another mutant that Xavier accidentally outs. McCoy and Xavier use a prototype Cerebro to locate mutants and recruit several of them to train to stop Shaw. Upon the recruiting process, we also see Xavier and Erik walk up to Hugh Jackman (in the much hyped cameo) in a bar and introduce themselves.  Jackman tells them to go to fuck off, and they walk off.

Shaw plans to meet with a Russian general, but sends Frost instead, who is then captured by Xavier and Erik. While they are in Russia, the CIA facility is attacked by Azazel, Riptide and Shaw, with all the guards being killed. Shaw recruits Angel (Zoe Kravits) and kills Darwin by forcing him to ingest a massive amount of energy. Upon Erik and Xavier’s return they begin to train the mutants, at Xavier’s family mansion, though Raven is conflicted about hiding her true form.

 Shaw travels with the Russian fleet, during the blockade to ensure that the missiles get to Cuba. Xavier, MacTaggart and Erik fly to the blockade to stop the fleets from engaging. Shaw uses a nuclear core to charge himself up and wears a very familiar helmet to block Xavier’s telepathy. While Azazel kills the crew of the Russian missile ship, Xavier uses his powers to make a Russian ship destroy the missile ship before it crosses the blockade line.

Erik then pulls Shaw’s sub from the water, but an attack forces the jet and submarine to crash. Erik finds Shaw and removes his helmet and Xavier takes control of Shaw. Erik puts on the helmet, then kills Shaw by slowly forcing the coin that Shaw taunted him with through his brain.

The two fleets fire their missiles at the mutants, but Erik, now fully in control of his abilities, holds the missiles in the air, then turns them on the fleet. In the ensuing fight Xavier manages to distract Erik, but when MacTaggart fires at him, he deflects the bullets, with one paralyzing Xavier.

Erik takes Raven, Angel, Riptide and Azazel and leaves. Xavier, now confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life, and the mutants return to the mansion, where he will open a school. He wipes MacTaggart's memory. The last scene is of Erik breaking Frost out of the CIA headquarters, and in his new uniform he tells Frost to call him Magneto.  

As I said earlier, this movie tosses what we knew previously in the film continuity. Gone is the scene in the beginning of X-Men 3 where Charles & Erik meet a young Jean Grey. I also think gone is most of Wolverine and most of the remaining two X-Men Films.  I had but a few problems with this film, mainly with the fact that Hank is the inventor of Cerebro and I really didn’t care for Zoe Kravits as Angel either as a character and for that matter her as an actress.  Other than that, this film is definitely worth viewing. My rating of this film is A+.