X-Men First Class – The pre-boot of a dying franchise, directed by Matthew Vaughn (director of Kick Ass) and produced by Bryan Singer (directed X1 and 2), recipe for success?

Rating: 8/10 (29 July 2011)

Two years have gone by since the release of the last X film; X-Men Origins: Wolverine. This being the origin story of the franchise's most popular character, so naturally expectations were high. However, when the film turned out to be nothing more than an action flick lacking character development, story and general attention to detail many fans, including myself, felt cheated. Rumors of other Origin projects, this time focused on Magneto and Deadpool, took off and fizzled out as soon as X-Men First Class was announced. This at first seemed like a wild stab in the dark for the studio after Wolverine failed to deliver. However, it eventually became clear that it would fill in the history for several main characters at once; Professor X, Magneto, Mystique and Beast, as well as introducing several new heroes and villains to the screen. Sounds too good to be true right? Well fortunately, it isn't!
This film may well be the best X-Men movie to date, rivaling only with X-Men 2. Finally there's something in this film that's been absent from the franchise for far too long: the ability to make us care about the characters. The majority of the film's characters are relatable and have their own personal conflicts such as insecurity, anger and loyalty. These are especially noticeable with James McAvoy's Professor X and Michael Fassbender's Magneto. Both actors have a brilliant fresh take on the characters. Professor X is far less serious than his previous portrayal. Yes he lectures students and advises the FBI, as you'd expect, but he's also out in the field fighting the bad guys with the rest of the team and is out drinking in bars when he's not on the job. He's young and it shows. Magneto here is vengeful, powerful but clearly human. He's been through some pretty dark stuff so has a right to be angry and Professor X knows this. These two together have great chemistry and their friendship feels real, even though we know that ultimately their views will separate them. The rest of the X-Men do get their time to shine, Mystique and Beast also deserve a mention for character chemistry, but they're all ultimately shadowed by Magneto and Professor X who seem to steal the show slightly. Although not all of First Class's villains are convincing, Kevin Bacon's Sebastian Shaw is casually brutal which really works for a threatening bad guy, and the bright red teleporting Azazel (yes, he is pretty much a red Nightcrawler) is pure ninja in a fight.
Moving on to the action, the fights between the X-Men and the Hellfire Club are brilliant and even the training is great to watch. First Class really does have some great jaw dropper moments. Sadly the film does have a weakness, well, depending on how you look at it. First class doesn't quite seem to know where it stands with the other X-Men films in terms of continuity. Hence the term coined at the start of this review; pre-boot. I'm not going to list all the things that stop it from linking up with Origins: Wolverine or X3, but you might just have to pretend those films didn't happen for it to all make sense. Some of us already were anyway