Not quite first class, but a good effort.

Rating: 6/10 (7 June 2011)

Superhero movies are a lot like buses. You spend so much time waiting for one, then as soon as it shows up and you hop on, you turn around to see another twenty buses coming from right down the street. Just this year we've already seen The Green Hornet and Thor, with Green Lantern and Captain America yet to be released. X-Men: First Class sits in the middle, yet another product of the studio that has currently saturated the mainstream movie market like no other in contemporary history. First Class does little to stand out from the rest of Marvel's films, but that being said, I found the near two-and-a-half hours absolutely flew by.
This film is an origin story: the tale of how such prominent fictional characters of popular culture became who we now know them to be. Set in 1962, the film follows the roles Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender) play in the formation of the X-Men, both good and evil. And because the men more commonly known as Professor X and Magneto are not yet archenemies, Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) plays the villain, a greedy and ambitious mutant responsible for the death of Erik's mother eighteen years ago.
The film's subject matter can at times become quite dark, which makes it all the more disappointing that an adequate script was not thought up to match the personas of key characters. In what is becoming a worrying trend for lovers of the spoken word such as myself, more and more action films are ditching the idea of putting together even cohesive dialogue in favour of easy-to-digest clichés and excessive visual grandeur.
Now I don't demand Shakespeare from these kinds of films, but it makes it exceedingly difficult to take the plight and the motives of the characters seriously when they don't seem to take it seriously themselves. An early flashback set in a concentration camp should set a gritty tone for the rest of the film. Instead, it is made almost comical through painfully awful dialogue and wooden delivery. Corny one-liners sneak their way in at a rate of about two per scene, all culminating to promote a character's self-respect in the least subtle way possible. You're proud to be a mutant. We get it.
The film doesn't really start to pop until the final half hour, a highly engaging set piece on the ocean in which Charles' mutants attempt to thwart Shaw's plan, only to discover some bad news they hadn't bargained for. For all its screenplay issues, First Class does a solid job of characterising both Charles and Erik, two powerful yet polarising figures who seek peace and redemption respectively. The way in which they decide, in a surprisingly platonic manner, to stand on opposite sides of the law because of their differing opinion on who is their true enemy, is a joy to watch. I can't help but think that, in a less profit-driven film, these two characters would be fleshed out further, but I can't fault First Class for going beyond its duties in terms of characterisation, considering it's a straight-out actioner.
A minor gripe rests with the film's laziness in maintaining the setting. We are told that it is set in '62, but without the black-and-white televisions featuring JFK, and the odd Beatles mop-top worn by an extra, you could be forgiven for thinking the film is set in the present day. Also, it seems most blockbusters set in this time go with one of two options when establishing a background. The film's events are linked either to the threat of Communism and a nuclear war, or the counterculture (think Summer of Love, Woodstock, all that). First Class went with the first option, and regardless of the backdrop set in the comic books (which I am not familiar with), I could have gone without it.
Finally, an honourable mention goes to the film's ability to tie up all loose ends, and explain, to a simpleton like me, some of the intricacies of how the X-Men came to be. These include the genetic mutation of Beast, the purpose of Magneto's helmet and how Charles ends up in a wheelchair. But put simply, in a choice between 'give it a look' and 'don't waste your time', it's a yes from me.
*There's nothing I love more than a bit of feedback, good or bad. So drop me a line on jnatsis@iprimus.com.au and let me know what you thought of my review.*