Vaughn's got the formula

Rating: 8/10 (1 June 2011)

I'll preface this by being completely blunt. After watching the last X- Men, Rattner's bastard child, I was skeptic about another potential waste of my time.
However, what made X-Men: The Last Stand mediocre made First Class splendid. First we have the cast. Halle Berry and Hugh Jackman are both questionable actors. Add Famke Jansen and Ana Paquin and you're heading for disaster. Which is what The Last Stand was. Even Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart couldn't save it, surrounded as they were.
Fast forward to First Class and the quality already begins with the choice of director. It was inevitable that the man that brought us Layer Cake (and then showed his hand in the super-hero milieu with Kick-Ass) could somehow pull a decent X-Men movie off. No easy feat considering our expectations after what we'd seen before.
The fresh set of actors selected for First Class was its crowning achievement. Fassbender and McAvoy are sublime together. Bacon's chemistry with Magneto is dynamite. Another phenomenon was present: even seemingly redundant (in their secondariness) roles were played by solid actors (such as the American and Russian ship commanders, and their politician counterparts).
January Jones' good looks were put to their proper use, even if there was no palpable difference between her character Emma Frost and Cadence Flaherty, and Byrne showed heretofore unseen ability, if a little tame in comparison with the others present. Nicholas Hoult, after playing such a different person in Skins, was a pleasant surprise.
First Class is another of Vaughn's marvelous brand of superhero movies. What we'd already seen in Kick-Ass we see here: the acting is so believable, and the story so carefully and craftily woven, that the end- result is more than just popcorn entertainment.
You can usually tell how good a movie is when its length imposes no boundaries on your viewing of it. Well, First Class's 2 hours passed by in 5 minutes. There wasn't a single frame too many of cheese, the strings played in the right moments, and it seamlessly integrated first- rate action with an engaging plot.
This is what movie-making is all about. Other directors should learn from Mr. Vaughn. He is an exquisite picture-maker. Hats off to you sir! 8/10.