A Good Movie that Should have been Great.

Rating: 7/10 (14 June 2011)

I consider myself as your typical fanboi with an independent point of view. So after watching "X-Men: First Class" on opening night I faced a dilemma; I was unsure whether I liked the movie or not. It really took me three showings to make up my mind. As a standalone film "X-Men: First Class" would arguably be one of the better if not the best Super Hero films releases of all time. There is little question that the cinematography is first rate, the story line moves along well, the pace is good, the acting is better than expected and as an observer you were drawn into the movie.
"X-Men: First Class" is not a standalone film, it is a prequel to the successful X-Men Trilogy of movies that at least two of the movies well liked. It also based upon the long-running Comic Book(s) with several successful TV series, off shoots and an extremely loyal following. To me the question is where does the movie fail? After three viewings of the movie it fails for me because it could have been a great movie rather than a good movie, had the leadership in the project put their noses to the grindstones and really worked at it. An example of this, the story moves along in history without much continuity to begin with, starting in Poland, jumping to New York, then Switzerland, than Had the producers really thought about it, could you just imagine an introduction narrated by Sir Ian McKellan and Sir Patrick Stewart telling their back story in a scene that takes place somewhere between the second and third movie and linking us the audience to the existing X-Men Trilogy? Or if that was not possible having Moria MacTaggert providing a debriefing as the opening. The first fifteen minutes of the film with a something to connect the continuity would have been extraordinary rather than the required back story. The movie attempts to preserve the continuity to the X-Men Trilogy on a number of occasions and ignores it on others. You must do one or the other, I honestly hoped they would have had better continuity between the four movies it was cool seeing the Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Rebecca Romijn popped in and the comments about the older selves, however coupled with the elements of change, why bother? I understand the need to minimize the number of characters used or introduced (See "X-Men: The Last Stand" for an example of a failure in that regard) however here is a case where a couple of extra characters would have greatly enhanced the story and allowed characters like Moria MacTaggert to move into her more appropriate role. As a minor detail that really irks the movie buff in me the movie really needs to be re-cut, you have 15 minutes of good pace and action and then a scene that takes two minutes and you asking yourself what did the scene accomplish. An example of a well cut movie is "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" theatrical release. While I prefer the Extended Edition of that movie, the theatrical release was very much pointed story about Frodo, or Frodo Centric. It provided excellent pace and worked well, this movie has about four scenes that left you going hey, why is it important how does it extend the story. Finally this is a movie screaming Director's Extended Edition for your DVD viewing pleasure. In most cases I really hate that and this follows that rule. Unless you are going to turn a three hour movie into a four hour movie and fill in all the story line holes (See LotR). The movies has a number of missing parts to the story line and with all the geeks out there going to nitpick the writers know this, so obviously the storyline was filled in. Would have adding 15 minutes of film changed the number of people in the seats, in my opinion it would have gotten many of the Fanbois to see the film a third and fourth time without losing much in the way of audience. Now we wait and wonder