Really Good, but please make up your mind about the movie continuity, Marvel

Rating: 8/10 (10 June 2011)

This might have been the best X-Men movie yet. I say might, because there are some serious problems with the continuity of this movie series that has been bothering me since X-Men Origins:Wolverine came out.
It seems that Marvel can't make up its mind whether it wants to reboot the franchise, or establish an episodic series of movies with their prequels (a la Star Wars). I can see why they're struggling with this decision, because there are benefits and drawbacks to both. The benefit to a true prequel, is that the narrative of the story remains intact across all movies, and you could watch them in order and experience a complete story. Comic book fans love this type of story telling, and for X-Men, which is, first and foremost, a comic book series with a rich history going all the way back to 1963, this is the most obvious and sensible way to tell the story.
But prequels are very difficult to pull off successfully. Unless the whole storyline is pre-written before anything gets released, it's very difficult to retro-actively tell a backstory without running into continuity errors. Since the ending of the story is already written in stone, you are writing yourself into a corner every time you try to tell a prequel story. And since films are limited by a number of other factors (running time, budget, actor availability, etc.), the difficulty of pulling this off increases. Often the quality of the story is sacrificed in the name of continuity, which can lead to some very convoluted story lines that would turn off any new viewer immediately.
Because of these difficulties, a reboot is often preferred when doing a movie that's supposed to take place before the events in the already established series. Batman Begins did this and they had a lot of success with it. The writer and director has a lot more freedom with a reboot, and can tell the story they want to tell without being constrained by what was already released.
But Marvel can't seem to make up its mind whether it wants to reboot their franchises or tell a true prequel. I first had inklings of this when they released the Incredible Hulk in 2008, which seemed to ignore the previous 2005 Hulk movie, yet at the same time sort of continued the story. Then in 2009 with X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which was supposed to be a prequel, it was clear they were ignoring some aspects of the original X-Men films. One particular inconsitency was Tyler Maine's Sabretooth, who never recognized Wolverine in X-Men 1 (2000), but with X-Men Origins:Wolverine we're supposed to believe that Lieve Schreiber's Sabretooth was Wolverine's brother and closest friend for nearly 100 years. So was it a reboot? Or was it just a mistake? Most likely it was neither. They wanted to tell the story they wanted to tell and purposely ignored the fact that it conflicted with what was established before so they simply retconned some aspects. It's the middle ground approach, and comic book fans know that it's sloppy storytelling.
Without spoiling anything I'll just say that X-Men:First Class has similar problems with it's continuity with the other films. You're never sure if it's supposed to be a reboot or a prequel. It's a retcon, pure and simple. Now, the anal retentive aspect of my nature is infuriated by this. With comic books that have been going on for decades, like the X-Men, some retcons are forgiven. They're necessary evils when you have hundreds of issues or episodes to keep track of. But I'm less forgiving with this movie series. There have only been four movies before this one. It's not like the X-Men movie series is so vast that they need to retcon it as much as they do. They were already retconning after the third film. It's lazy, and the inconsistencies are so obvious that you don't have to be a fan to notice it. Just watch each of the movies one time and you'll spot them.
But, at the same time, the less anal half of my nature is more forgiving of X-Men: First Class. Why? Because it was actually a really good movie. Honestly, the story was excellent and entertaining and the characters well portrayed. I was loving James McAvoy's portrayal of Xavier in particular. And, most of all, it was true to the heart and soul of X-Men, a comic book series I have fond memories of reading as a kid. I was less forgiving of the Wolverine movie, since it was not as good and had just as many continuity problems.
X-Men:First Class was really good. But it could have been great. If they had done a true reboot they could have made a better film. For one, they could have used the original X-Men team (Cyclops, Angel, Beast, Iceman, Marvel Girl). Cyclops, in particular, I felt should have been one of the first students. In the comics, his role is iconic as the leader and most loyal and longstanding member of the X-Men. I don't feel any of the films did his character justice. Instead with the exception of Beast, we got a bunch of minor X-Men characters, many of whom were never actually X-Men members (some were villains) to represent the first X-Men team. A few of them I didn't even recognize as ever having been in the comics. It still works, but for fans of X-Men, it just seems ... off. And since they pretty much rewrote the history they established in the other movies with all of the retconning they did, it simply wasn't necessary. It could have been a great reboot. But as it stands it's just a really good film.