A welcome return to form for the mutant series.

Rating: 8/10 (2 July 2011)

Kick-starting a solid month of motion pictures, Matthew Vaughn's X-Men prequel is everything the trilogy closing The Last Stand and spin-off Wolverine should've been: intelligent, dramatic and fun. Utilising the epochal Cuban Missile Crisis as a backdrop for the young mutants to meet is a clever means of setting time and place, as well as providing a sense of urgency, both for plot and character development. Director Vaughn (Kick-Ass) spices up the proceedings with his rapidly-increasing trademark edginess – have you heard the F-bomb in the franchise before? – whilst the stellar cast features career best turns from James McAvoy as the idealistic womaniser Xavier 'Professor X' Charles, Michael Fassbender as the internally conflicted Erik 'Magneto' Lehnsherr, and Kevin Bacon as the charismatically vicious villain Sebastian Shaw. First Class builds on the success of Bryan Singer's initial two X-Men pictures, rather than relying on it, marking it as a welcome return to form for the mutant series.