Try Hard at Best (Vaughn Cannot Direct)

Rating: 5/10 (4 December 2011)

If Matthew Vaughn was ordering desert he would order everything on the menu as well as wanting what the guy on the next table was having... and ending up with a overindulgent mess which has its nice bits but doesn't work as a dish.
Unfortunately he applies these methods when trying to direct movies. With Layer Cake he tried to direct a gangland film like his mate Guy Ritchie (noted he was the producer for Lock, Stock & Snatch) and just created an indulgent carbon copy. Both Stardust (which was an interesting movie) and KickAss were overindulgent and crammed full of too many elements, characters and themes trying to tick too many boxes and please anything & everything.
This has unfortunately been applied to X-Men: First Class.
So how can you mess up an X-Men movie? Given that with any comic book movie those involved have been given the story (of multiples of from the different universes etc) in both written and pictorial form it would seem all thats required is to redirect this onto the screen. Problem is that due to the rich source material available to those in movieland they seem obsessed with taking too many elements and fusing them with their own spin with the result always being a mess of a movie.
Throw Vaughn into the mix and its a big old mess of a movie trying too hard to be exceptional with what seems to be a very limited budget. Character choice and acting is weak with too many 'in-house' jokes about wheelchairs, going bald and an unnecessary cameo from Hugh Jackman.
Given that the movie stands alone and shouldn't be considered a true prequel to the X-Men movies as it is a different 'take' on the X-Men it still tries to fit into the franchise (ie. with the Jackson cameo) which again is an unnecessary try hard addition.
The movie trundles along jumping from one timeframe to the next –whilst at the same time jumping from one location to next with very little development in story or character leading to a disappointing conclusion (the paralysis of Prof.X which is thrown in at the end as both underwhelming afterthought which is neither accurate or required).
All this said it is not a bad movie – and tries harder than the lazy Wolverine Movie, however unfortunately this movie tries too hard and Vaughn needs to give it up before he ruins anymore movies.