"We are Children of the Atom".

Rating: 9/10 (9 October 2011)

I don't have the emotional investment in the Marvel Universe that a lot of comic book fans do, I grew up preferring the DC super-heroes. What I know about the X-Men comes from the infrequent casual read along with my exposure to other films in the franchise. As an outsider looking in, I thought this was a blast of a story showcasing the origins of Charles Xavier (James McAvoy), Erik Lensherr (Michael Fassbender), and the rest of the early X-Men characters. I particularly enjoyed the setting of the story in 1962, using the Cuban Missile Crisis as the backdrop for the confrontation between Xavier's team and that of Klaus Schmidt/Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon). That dynamic was skillfully used to explain the eventual break between Xavier and Lensherr, with Professor X attempting to work alongside humans, while Magneto would come to realize that that could never be the case.
That's not to say the story didn't have it's problems. For example, when Klaus Schmidt killed young Erik's mother, why didn't Erik simply finish the job of annihilating the German right then and there in the maelstrom he created? I fully expected that to happen, even while knowing that it couldn't for the sake of the story line. That could have been handled better than it was.
And my biggest disappointment - no Stan Lee! I don't know what happened there, but why break the precedent established with all the other Marvel franchise films? If someone thought that was a good idea, it should be apparent by now that it wasn't. Fortunately, the Hugh Jackman cameo as Wolverine partially assuaged my feelings about the Lee exclusion. Overall, I thought this was an intriguing story with a lot of cool elements and special effects. If all super-hero films could capture this level of character development and excitement, it would make the wait for the next one that more satisfying.