X-Men: First Class

A great many of the people I speak with regarding film had been anxiously awaiting the release of X-Men:First Class.  Typically I'm all about comic books taking the leap to the silver screen, however, in this case, for whatever the reason, I really wasn't looking forward to this film.

Perhaps keeping up to date on the ins-and-outs of Filmdom spoiled this film a bit for me, at least regarding my anticipation level.  Cyclops, Wolverine and Colossus have always been my favorite characters.  I knew ahead of time Cyclops and Wolverine wouldn't be in the film, which was a bummer in and of itself.  I knew the plot centered around the cuban missile crisis with the Hellfire Club involved edging the USA and Russia against each other.  Seeing that I had a feeling perhaps they'd ink Colossus in their somehow, but because of character age I kind of doubted his inclusion, which turned out to be a valid assumption.

Anyhow, I have to say I was pleasantly surprised.  The script was pretty good and Matthew Vaughn is quickly becoming a favorite of mine. I thought Magneto's character pretty much carried the action, which somewhat made up for the lack of cyclops and Wolverine.  Havok and Banshee helped that loss a lot as they have some pretty wicked abilities.

Overall if you like the other X-Men flicks, you'll enjoy this one too.  Not much sense in rehashing the storyline, apart from what I've already said, seeing it is a prequel and all, and seemed from what I can remember pretty true to the origins from the book. So I figured for this review I'll list some of the high-points and low-points.

High Points

1.  January Jones-  Played an exceptional Emma Frost.  I look forward to more of her.

2. Banshee and Havok- As mentioned above, I've always liked their abilities, and while being supporting characters it was interesting to watch their development.

3.  Raven/Mystique-  I enjoyed the dynamics involved between the young Charles Xavier with her, representing a surrogate family ideal as well as the dynamic between herself and Magneto, who preaches truth to oneself.  Interesting how the line Charles used earlier in the film, Mutant and Proud, which she dismissed early on, empowered her as she made the decision to embrace what and who she is.

4.  Kevin Bacon- Not my favorite actor but he had a good role playing Shaw.

5.  Nathan Lane-  Probably not worth mentioning here, but I'm a Nathan Lane fan and albeit a small part it was nice to see him involved.

6.  Wolverine Cameo- Classic Logan

Low Points

1. Kind of a Snafu of script I picked up on.  Toward the climax, Mystique changes into Shaw, with the "Magneto helmet" on, to save banshee and Havok.  The problem is that there was no way she could have known that Shaw had the Helmet on.  A. She's not a telepath B. Professor X, at the time was trying to figure out what was blocking his connection to Shaw, which was the helmet.  Very minor detail but nevertheless something to mention.

2.  I'm sure they could have found a couple other character's besides "Darwin"  and the girl "Angel".  The Hellfire club had other interesting characters as did the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, Blob would've been nice seeing the relationship between he and the Professor.

Anyhow worth seeing and much, much better than I had originally thought it would be.  Perhaps there's hope for Captain America, another film I'm not that excited for.

Next couple films I happen to be very excited for are Super 8, Green Lantern and Rise of the Planet of the Apes.