Cold War-era Marvel flick hits right on target

Rating: 7/10 (27 August 2014)

I was always a bit lukewarm about the original X-Men trilogy, and was really underwhelmed by the Wolverine back story prequels, so I've come out the other side of this film concluding it's the best one yet (still to see Days of Future Past).
The one feature I did always look forward to in the originals was the confrontation between Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen as the respective goodie and villain, and James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender's channeling of their older counterparts is probably the highlight of this picture. In terms of the film itself, it's a fairly well crafted plot, nicely paced, and well acted - nothing too special, but a solid watch.
I think the element of this movie that elevates it above its predecessors most, however, is the thought that has gone into the development of the characters, and background of the story. With the originals, CGI was still growing in popularity, and quite large sections of those films were spent oohing and ahing at the various mutations and asking 'what can this one do?' and there is a bit of this in that (the girl with the bug wings stands out), but it doesn't take centre stage as with those previous efforts, to the benefit of the film overall. Being set amidst the backdrop of the Cuban Missile Crisis, there's a nice political subtext when unraveling the motivations and backgrounds of the two leads, and that context gives a lot more weight to the story than with the first three films and the Wolverine origins stories, which seemed to exist in bubble-like isolation from the real world at times.
So a strong 7, I look forward to seeing the next installment if it's anything like this one.