The perfect prequel

Rating: Null/10 (28 September 2014)

After the lacklustre "X-Men: The Last Stand" and the very poor "X-Men Origins: Wolverine", this is a magnificent return to form for the franchise. It's an absolutely brilliant film.
James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender make for extremely engaging leading men, wisely choosing to put their own stamps on the younger Professor Xavier and Magneto rather than merely emulating Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen's performances. Their relationship is fascinating and wonderfully acted by both men. It also highlights just how badly Wolverine and Sabretooth's potentially fascinating relationship was handled in the previous film. The film has a stellar cast overall. Kevin Bacon is suitably creepy and contemptible as Sebastian Shaw. Of the rest of the cast, the strongest performers were Rose Byrne as Moira MacTaggert, Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique and Nicholas Hoult as Hank McCoy. I adored Hugh Jackman and Rebecca Romijn's cameos and it was nice to see Michael Ironside, Ray Wise and Rade erbedija pop up in small roles.
It makes for the perfect prequel, very effectively illustrating the characters' early years and influences and how the events of this film impacted on their lives, making them the characters to whom we were introduced (on film, anyway) in "X-Men". This was done best in Magneto's case, followed by Mystique and Professor Xavier. It's certainly the best prequel that I've ever seen.