Review of X-Men: First Class (2011) by David L — 09 Jun 2014

Following the success of the previous three episodes, this one takes us back to the very beginning, to understand how our main two leaders, Xavier and Magneto came about, and how their allegiances were formed.

A prequel to the original x-men movie, this stars a whole new up and coming cast of current favourites (Jennifer Lawrence, James Macavoy, Nicholas Hoult etc) in reprising a youthful look to the roles we have been familiar with, but executed to an equal degree of excellence.

As I've always credited with the other films, these movies are very good at preventing any possibility of a stale production by introducing several new characters, including Havok, Azazel, Frost, Angel, Banshee, and Riptide, each with their own display of special powers.

On the flip side, given the focus on tying in the storyline to previous instalments, there did appear to be less action and more focus on character development and storyline, and when this is centred around the two leading men who of anybody could possibly have the more boring (albeit powerful) abilities, one could be forgiven for watery attention spans.

I wasn't particularly impressed with the choice of villain either, as as good as Kevin Bacon was, his energy absorbing powers were somewhat dull. Having said that, there's enough of a support cast to nullify these leads and it is entertaining throughout the majority of the running time.

It has admittedly merged the stories nicely to ensure that if I were to watch the original versions again, I would have a smooth transition of concept from start to finish, but I was surprised to see no reference to Storm or Cyclops or a few others of the usual gang, given a brief appearance from the age defying Wolverine! I suspect this is something that will be picked up in the next chapter due out in 2014 - One which I will definitely be looking forward to seeing!