Ruined potential...

Rating: Null/10 (17 July 2011)

As I am a huge X-Men fan, having read the comics and watched the animated series many, many, many times, I eagerly waited for the "First Class". I hoped the writers would stick to the comic story-line, as they mostly did in previous movies. But after couple of minutes, I was already thinking - "This can't be good".
First, Xavier's and Mystique's friendship - where that come from? I think it was done purposely, so Mystique could be in the movie at all - joining Magneto at the end and making legitimate ground for her character. Than there's the scene, when Magneto's mother is killed - why on Earth Erik didn't kill Shaw then, instead of crushing tables and cabinets? And most of all - team. Havok and Banshee were OK, but the girl with wings who looked more like Wasp from Avengers? What happened to Bobby Drake or Warren Worthington? Oh, I now what. "We have shown Iceman as a teenager in X-Men (1), so he can't possibly be alive in 1960's". That's the biggest plot hole in the whole X-Men film universe - by messing around with characters age (not mentioning lack of characteristic Scottish accent of Moira MacTaggart), it caused weird time continuum where some heroes are already mature and battle-ready, and some are never mentioned (Cyclops, Jean).
Adding to that, some things weren't explained in the film at all, like: who's Emma Frost? What is she doing with Shaw? What's a Hellfire Club? Who the heck are these guys helping Shaw? And why? And there's plenty of more such things.
On the positive side I have to say that fight scenes are pretty damn good - quick and well made. So as for actors - they are quite good at portraying comic book heroes and villains; and brief Wolverine cameo was worth every second of it :) As for the plot, my feelings are that it was a tool to establish a starting point for a future exploitation, and not a material for the movie itself. The whole movie looked like it's only goal was to make Professor X handicapped, Magneto an evil mutant and Mystique his accomplice. The Cuban crisis idea was neat, but because of all that, it served only as a battlefield for good and bad guys.
Summing it up, I have to say, that it was a good movie if you just want to watch some nice special effects sequences, but for a real X-Men fan, this film's story is too much stretched form the original to give a eyes feast.