by Erin Hatch, Editor-at-Large and Matt Sernaker, Senior Editor
I did not have particularly high hopes for X-Men: First Class when I first heard of the film, given the quality of the last few movies in the X-Men franchise. After the disaster of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, I was skeptical that anyone in Hollywood would do justice to the long-established comic book series. Even after the initial trailers for First Class looked semi-decent, I didn’t allow myself to hope that this was going to be a great movie. I was pleasantly surprised when viewing the film to discover that it is not only decent, but actually really good. While it still has a few problems in the story department and its relationship to X-Men continuity, I would say that not only was First Class worth my time, but it is the best X-Men movie yet, and easily makes it way into the top five Best Superhero Films of all time. Now X-Men: First Class is available for you to own on Blu-ray and DVD!
SPOILER ALERT: This is a prequel to X-Men, X2 and X-Men: The Last Stand, I won’t give anything away that you wouldn’t learn from watching those three earlier movies or reading the comics, but if you really don’t know anything at all about X-Men and want to go in clean… well, stay away.
As the title suggests, X-Men: First Class is the story of a young Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Erik “Magneto” Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender) seeking out fellow mutants and establishing their first team of super-powered youngsters. They do this in order to help the CIA prevent Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) and his Hellfire Club from engineering the Cuban Missile Crisis in an attempt to have humanity wipe itself out with nuclear war; leaving ample room for mutants to take their place. The movie is filled with enough satisfying mutant action, spectacular set pieces, and snappy dialogue, that it distracts you from the fact that the actual sequence of events is more of an excuse for mutants to use their powers than it is a coherent story arc. While the story is a little jumbled, the character development is great, especially tracing the relationship between Xavier and Magneto, and a the introduction of a new take on the relationship between Xavier and his childhood friend Mystique, and a common bond between Beast and Mystique.
While the film appears to mostly work within the same continuity as the earlier X-Men films, there are some plot-points that create continuity issues, making First Class a semi-reboot. Additionally, the film takes some creative liberties by altering the backstory of the comics, changing the original X-men team away from Angel, Iceman, Cyclops and Marvel Girl, keeping Beast as the only remaining original character. All nitpicking aside, this film goes a long way to bring the X-Men film franchise significantly closer to its comic book counterpart. Long term readers of X-Men might find faults here and there, but all of that is easily excused due to the level of detail and thought that went into the interpersonal relationship between the characters, as well as the very talented actors who had some big shoes to fill with this new release. Let’s not forget, this is the fifth attempt to get the X-Men characters right, and I felt that this movie accomplished that without any question.
James McAvoy makes a great young Professor X – Slightly dorky, yet brilliant and compassionate, and so concerned with peaceful human/mutant relationships that he ignores the very real dangers that eventually lead Michael Fassbender’s Magneto to form the Brotherhood of Mutants. Magneto is portrayed as a badass, and its very satisfying to watch his path from angry-young-man-seeking-vengeance-for-his-slaughtered-family, to impassioned freedom fighter trying to defend his people against the world. His dramatic backstory successfully shows the hows and whys of Magneto’s villain-status in the later X-Men movies. Kevin Bacon does a great job as the heinous (yet corny) villain, Sebastian Shaw, and is just plain fun to watch. The film also features fantastic interpretations of Beast (Nicholas Hoult), Mystique (Jennifer Laurence), Banshee (Caleb Landry Jones), Havok (Lucas Till), Emma Frost (January Jones), Darwin (Edi Gathegi), Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne), and Azazel (Jason Flemyng). While the majority of the characters exceeded all expectations, First Class was rather lacking in its choices of Riptide (Alex Gonzales) and Angel (Zoe Kravitz), who was easily the worst character and choice for this movie.(EDITORS NOTE: This is Angel from the Grant Morrison X-Men run, not Warren Worthington from the original comics.) Who could have possibly guessed that we would ever see a live action version of Azazel, who has only made one real appearance in the comics and was featured in one of the worst X-Men stories of the last decade? It was a surprise to everyone that he ended up being a great addition the this film, fullfilling the need for a teleporter on the Hellfire Club, and demonstrating that when used correctly, the character can kick some serious ass. In addition to McAvoy and Fassbender, who claimed the roles of Xavier and Magneto without skipping a beat, Jennifer Laurence and Nicholas Hoult also deserve a lot of credit for their very (for lack of a better word) “human” takes on Mystique and Beast.
Special Features:
The Two Disc Blu-ray release of X-Men: First Class brings us a couple hours worth of behind the scenes featurettes, commentaries and extras. Viewers can choose to watch the Special Features individually, or choose the “X Marks the Spot” viewing mode which integrates them into the feature film.
–X-Men: First Class in High Definition
-X Marks the Spot Viewing Mode
-Cerebro: Mutant Tracker
-Children of the Atom Multi-Part Documentary
-Deleted and Extended Scenes
-Composer’s Isolated Score
-BD Live: Live Extras – Go Behind the Scenes with brand new exclusive footage
-Live Lookup: Powered by IMDB
-Digital Copy of X-Men: First Class
-10 X-Men Digital Comics
-1080p Video
-English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio
ComicsOnline gives X-Men: First Class on Blu-ray- 4.5 out of 5 super-powered teenagers.
