X-Men: First Class

Even though the X-Men Origins title wasn’t used again after Wolverine, this movie essentially served as an Origins movie for Professor X, Magneto, Mystique, and Beast.

It’s phenomenal. We see Charles and Erik as children, the former a rich kid who pursues a life in higher education, the latter a Holocaust survivor who pursues life as a vigilante. Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon), the Nazi who tormented young Erik, seeks to kill all mutants so he, a mutant himself, can absorb their powers and stay young forever, and he actually starts the Cuban Missile Crisis in the hopes that the subsequent war between the world’s two superpowers will open the door for him to rule the whole planet.

JFK probably still feels he was treated better in Marvel Comics than DC though.

To battle Shaw and his henchmen, Charles and Erik team up with the former’s foster sister Raven and with prodigy scientist Hank, both fellow mutants, as well as various young mutant recruits they find using Charles’s psychic powers. Problems arise as former playboy Charles takes a strong moral stance that mutants will not lower themselves to human’s levels, no matter how persecuted, while embittered Erik still seeks vengeance and domination and the rest of the mutants fighting with them have to wonder where they fall. We obviously know how it will all turn out since this is a prequel, but the journey is incredible. James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, and Jennifer Lawrence do wonderful jobs as younger versions of the characters already played beautifully by Patrick Stewart, Ian MacKellen, and Rebecca Rojmin, although Nicholas Hoult as young Beast doesn’t quite rise to the level Kelsey Grammer did as the older one.\

Charles and Erik

Raven and Hank

The writing, direction, scoring, and editing are on point, leading up to one of the best climactic scenes I’ve seen in a movie and a nice, hopeful resolution for a story whose conflict we know will last for decades and decades.

Terrific film.

Bottom Line: Awesome!

Up Next: More low-key.

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