MARVEL is definitely on a roll. Superb Film!

Rating: Null/10 (9 June 2011)

MARVEL is definitely on a roll! It all started with the huge success of X-Men over a decade ago. So, it's fitting the high water mark comes this summer with X-Men First Class right in the middle of it. Thor was great earlier this summer and Captain America looks even better. Iron Man and the Hulk kicked butt recently. So, if Marvel gets their hired out characters rolling, the sky is the limit. I don't know about Sony's Spider-Man but Fox managed to return the X-Men to greatness. Can't wait to see what Fox does with the next Wolverine and the whole world is eagerly awaiting the Avengers to assemble!
One of the best improvements about First Class over X-Men is that much valuable screen time is spent on background character development. They actually pick up from the scene of young Magneto shown in X-Men. I believe that was probably needed in the first film, but they had so much else to introduce that they got away with showing much less. That's the beauty of this film and now I see why they choose to save Scott, Jean and Storm's introduction for future films. Taking the proper time to establish Charles and Erik was a must and it is very well done. Even in X2, the newer characters that were introduced got very little time devoted to their past. It worked but the way new characters are introduced here works better. People in general are smart and can read between the lines, thus negating the necessity for cumbersome background information in general. Some of that is on display here but they truly flesh out the characters that need it the most. Apparently the director figured out this delicate balance because First Class flows smoothly, with hardly a stutter along the way to break up the action but still delivering an intelligent and moving film.