Before he was Professor X, he was Charles. Before he was Magneto, he was Erik.

Rating: 7/10 (3 June 2011)

X-Men: First Class, following the classic Marvel mythology, charts the epic beginning of the X-Men saga. Before Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr took the names Professor X and Magneto, they were two young men discovering their powers for the first time. Before they were archenemies, they were closest of friends, working together, with other Mutants (some familiar, some new), to stop the greatest threat the world has ever known. In the process, a rift between them opened, which began the eternal war between Magneto's Brotherhood and Professor X's X-Men. (20th Century Fox)
FIRST CLASS is a bit of a disappointing film. The end result is that of a "meh" because it's a step up from WOLVERINE and THE LAST STAND, which isn't saying much, but it's nowhere near as great as X2. With its potential, FIRST CLASS could have been so much better than it turned out to be. The main flaw of the film is that it tells an origin story which in itself makes the film less interesting to watch because we're only waiting to see inevitable consequences resulting in what we already saw in the first X-Men film. It's like STAR WARS 3. Sure, it's cool to see things connect to the trilogy, but we expected that in the first place.
Being an origin story also means we have to go through the process of learning each character all over again which means a huge chunk of the film would be devoted to exposition. This could be interesting, and parts of it are, including a touching romance that develops between Raven (Mystique) and Hank (Beast). The addition of newer characters should also make this less tedious than it should be, but, like the previous X-Men films, there are just too many characters to fully develop each of them. Even with a long running time of over two hours, most of them are left in the dust, including the villains and professor Xavier himself. Still, director Matthew Vaughn tries his best to balance the many characters in this film, although not fully succeeding.
Many people will argue that the other characters don't matter since it focuses more on the relationship between Charles (Professor X) and Erik (Magneto). Unfortunately, even that isn't as fully developed as we want it to be. The problem is that the relationship is portrayed so much better by the two older actors in the trilogy, played by Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, that we yearn for them to appear on screen together again. There is, however, one scene in which I felt the emotional connection between these two characters, which involves a satellite, and it's a sweet but short scene. The film also hints on the themes that were explored in the trilogy, but that doesn't do much good because they are only touched upon and are more interesting when we see them play out in the trilogy.
Another thing they could have made more interesting or changed altogether was the story dealing with the missile crisis. It's simply not interesting or compelling to watch. Even the climax in which the story really comes into play is as exciting as watching a kids race. It had little to do with the mutants themselves and more to do with stopping a nuclear war and, because of that, I didn't find myself caring much. The main villain, played by Kevin Bacon, isn't all that memorable either. He's very 2 dimensional with a bland super power. Again, we yearn a time in which the villain was McKellen's Magneto, who's more complex and interesting than Bacon's character will ever be.
I must say that James McAvoy is miscasted as Charles Xavier. As stated earlier, he's not developed well in here and his role is mainly to help and find more mutants. There's not much for him to do than his character truly deserves. Michael Fassbender, on the other hand, plays a fierce and compelling Magneto, saying his lines with conviction and bringing great emotional weight to his character. Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique is another noteworthy name among the cast who brings a soft and sweet side to her character. I also liked Nicholas Hoult as Beast. Everyone else, including January Jones and Jason Flemyng (who's like a Nightcrawler 2.0), are pretty forgettable. Saying all of that, the film does include some great action scenes, for the few that are in here, with terrific special effects. The soundtrack by Henry Jackman should have been toned down quite a bit though.
With all the problems listed above, FIRST CLASS is not a bad film. It's just an incredibly flawed one with nostalgia that only reminds us of the better, older actors in the trilogy. However, there are some intelligent aspects from the script, and the film does offer a few shining and emotional moments that go far and beyond many superhero films before, including the lackluster THOR and the dumb INCREDIBLE HULK. Even if I sounded like I'm being hard on this film, I'm doing so on purpose because I can see the great that can come out of it. Overall, FIRST CLASS ends up being my second favorite in the series, even ahead the first film (which I thought was only decent) but behind X2. With all the set up in this prequel (much like X-MEN is to X2), I do believe that a FIRST CLASS PART II could make this prequel series reach its potential and hopefully not disappoint us with a FIRST CLASS PART III like THE LAST STAND did. 6.5/10