Surprisingly good-kind of a history lesson

Rating: 8/10 (30 June 2012)

I grew up reading DC comics and lived through the Cuban missile crisis when I was in high school. Marvel comics came a little late for me, so I was unfamiliar with a lot of their characters. I have seen all the other X-Men movies and while I enjoyed them, I was a little lost in the characters, their powers and their origins. This movie, much like Batman Begins or Star Wars I, fills us in on the beginnings of characters that we have already been exposed to.
It is really neat that the writers weaved the missile crisis with historical clips into the story. Just as I was out of the era of the characters, the majority of viewers will be unaware that the crisis was very real and very serious. I just hope that they do not believe this is the way it was actually averted. Perhaps it will encourage a few viewers to look into the history of it and the Cold War of that era. While they are at it, since the beginning of the movie was set in a camp during the Holocaust, a look into that era and the mindset of a few people would add to your understanding of how the mental and emotional being could be affected by the experience.
For those who like action and special effects, they are all there and pretty well done. There is nothing there that I can remember saying that I have never seen anything like that before. The computer generated graphics do not have the pasted up look that you see in many attempts. The nice thing is that the movie does not consist of nothing but action and special effects-there is actually a decent story line. That in itself is becoming quite rate in most movies.
All in all, this was a good attempt to fill us in on how it all began. Obviously, the ending set us up for a sequel. I am looking forward to it to further fill me in on the story line from the earlier movies.