A fun, well-made summer hit

Rating: 7/10 (13 June 2011)

It's hard, these days, to go to the movies to see a superhero movie and NOT expect greatness, or at least something close to it. With such classics recently like The Dark Knight, Iron Man, and Kick-Ass, we superhero buffs have it pretty muchly made, apart from a few minor bumps like Thor. All this in mind, I sat down with my buddies expecting greatness, and was not disappointed with an opening scene that almost moved me to tears. A boy in a concentration camp has his mother ruthlessly gunned down in front of him by a cruel Nazi doctor. It's like Schindler's List meets Batman. Instant Oscar material, right? Well, not exactly. Following this perfectly executed scene is an hour and a half of not so perfectness. It's funny that after years of fancy special effects driven films, filmmakers have finally gotten down said effects to a tee, while tending to throw that out the window with terrible acting and even worse scripts; however, with X-Men: First Class, it was exactly the opposite. Every actor in this movie flawlessly created realistic mutants whom the audience could actually relate to, particularly McAvoy and Fassbender, the films lead roles. The script was equally flawless, surprisingly lacking in cheesy lines and jokes, but still managing to be fun and lighthearted when need be. Then we get to the effects...not the action effects, no, those were spectacular, in fact you could almost feel Magneto lifting Kevin Bacon's ridiculously huge and lavish submarine from the depths of the Atlantic, but rather the effects and make-up of the mutants themselves. These ranged from mediocre at best, to just plain ridiculous. The mediocre: Angel's wings, Shaw's goofy helmet and Havok's havoc wreaking. The ridiculous: Mystique's transforming, Azazel in general, and Beast's make-up, which looked quite like a hairier version of Chaka from Land of the Lost. But, as bad as some of those things could be, I found myself not caring, and still managing to be swept up in the action packed fun of it all. You may remember I said that the middle hour and a half wasn't great, but what about the last half hour? Superhero movie perfection. A perfect climax, perfect resolution, perfect showing of the cause of the schism between Prof. X and Magneto, perfect cliffhanger ending, and perfect set up to a new series of movies. Was the movie perfect? Nah. Was it great? Almost. Was it one helluva fun ride and good summer action flick? One hundred percent yes.