For those of you who haven't seen this movie yet, here is a brief synopsis. "X-Men: First Class" acts as a prequel to the "X-Men" trilogy, set primarily in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It focuses on the relationship between Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Erik Lensherr (Michael Fassbender) and the origin of their groups, the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Mutants.
If I were to just turn off my brain and forget everything that has happened before this film came out, this would be one of my favorite movies. The action is great, the actors are incredible (especially the two main leads) and the movie just breathes new life into a franchise that some, myself excluded, felt was becoming stale. As a stand alone film, "First Class" delivers on all accounts. However, I can't just forget about what happened before. This movie just does not fit in with the other four "X-Men" films that come before it, and that really bothers me. It would be one thing if they announced that they were rebooting the entire franchise and starting from the beginnings of the X-Men - even though I love the previous films, I would be on board with that. I am all about seeing new interpretations of beloved characters. And, to their credit, they sort of called this film part reboot. But there are so many call backs to the previous films that you can't distance this film from the other four. For example (spoiler alert) - as much as I loved the two cameos in this movie, all it did for me was tie this film to the ones that came before it. Yet they obviously tried really hard to make this it's own film, one that was separate from the previous franchise. So why did they have these connections that so loudly tied the films together?
The only way I could see them rectifying this mistake is if they follow the "Star Trek" route. X-Men producer extraordinaire Lauren Schuler-Donner announced that they have submitted scripts for X4 (which leads directly into X5) and the studio loved it. That means that we might be seeing the original cast back for more adventures soon. One story that Schuler-Donner has mentioned she would love to adapt for the big screen is "Days of Future Past" in which the current day X-Men have to fight to save their future selves, basically. They could adapt this story line for the films so that both timelines could exist, much like J.J. Abrams did in is fantastic reboot/sequel "Star Trek." That way inconsistencies, such as Professor X losing his ability to walk at a young age as seen in "First Class;" yet seen walking as a much older man at the beginning of "The Last Stand," could be explained as two different timelines. If they did that, I would absolutely love it. Will they? I have no idea.
That being said, if you forget that this is supposed to be a prequel, the movie rocks. The best scenes are the ones that follow young Magneto on his Nazi killing quest to find the man that ruined his life at such a young age. I also really enjoyed the training montage in the middle of the film - it was very playfully done, but I thought it worked. I hope this isn't the only time we will see these characters in this time frame. I personally think that there is more to Charles' and Erik's friendship - I just don't think that they are done with each other. There were also other character nuggets dropped here and there: could Mystique and the teleporting Azazel have a blue skinned teleporting child? When did Storm, Cyclopes and Jean Gray become members of the school? I'd love to see those story lines play out in future installments.
And, I know I've said this before, but this movie features the best use EVER of the allotted one usage of the f-bomb in a PG-13 film. It was just fantastic.
Final verdict: 6 out of 10
