X-Men: First Class

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Jordan, Amberly, Tyler

A step in the right direction, that's for sure. After Matthew Vaughn jumped ship and left Brett Ratner to clean up the mess and then the abortion that was the Wolverine spin-off he finally came back and reminded us that the franchise is still worth looking at. Even with the obligatory Hugh Jackmen cameo.

While it has the problems all prequels suffer from, namely we know who's expendable and where all the other characters will end up, it's quite creative in how it pieces it all together. And the period superhero action is fun too, makes me look forward to Captain America.

Let's stat with what I didn't like. First and Foremost is the issue of the dialogue. Now I know Jennifer Lawrence can be a good actress, I saw Winter's Bone, but here she is the most incompetent one of them all and a big part of that is the dialogue she has to sprout. It feels like placeholder "movie talk" that they never had time to replace with anything resembling human speech. She certainly isn't the only culprit but the most obvious.

The other cringe inducing moments were the all the bad forced foreshadowing humour. Yes. We know Professor X ends up being bald. At this rate, if they do a sequel I think it might be the main plot, like how he became a paraplegic was the main plot of this one. (I kid.. Kinda.)

And as cool as Michael Fassbender is, I wish his accent were more consistent.

I actually think Nicholas Hoult was my favourite as Hank/Beast and I like the idea of his relationship with Mystic and it's conciquences, even if the execution wasn't that successful.

The whole Cuba climax worked really well for me, lots of nice character payoffs as well as action. And that's the thing about this movie and the series as a whole, the character, the outsiders, they can make fascinating subjects and the main character dynamics are still as interesting to watch as ever.

Training Montage!!!

There was no Stan Lee Cameo. I didn't miss it, it's not there. Was he ever in this series?

Kevin Bacon as the villain? Yeah it was pretty good. But he was there more as a means to an end, a reson to get the characters on their path. And an interesting thematic device. The Atomic age indeed.

It's a fine and sorely needed addition to the franchise. If it makes you want more, or go back and watch the first 2 films again then it's done it's job well.