Day 45 - X-Men: First Class

X-Men: First Class (2011) directed by Matthew Vaughn

The problem with origin stories is that they usually take too long to get off the ground. First you have to introduce the characters before they were heroes (or villains), then insert the defining moment that leads them down their path. Then they must train and hone their powers (or recruit a team if they're a supergroup). After that, establish some sort of villain (preferably one with some sort of link to the heroes' past) and a plot in which hero must face villain. It won't be until the third act that the heroes are ready for battle and they won't even be in full form. Some people find these origin stories exciting, others find them too slow. While I loved Batman Begins, it was really The Dark Knight that took the Batman reboot to a whole new level. The first movie in a planned series is almost always going to be slower while the second typically hits hits the ground running on all gears. Compare, for example, the first fifteen minutes of the original X-Men and the action-packed beginning of X2. I happen to like the concept of origin movies provided they are paced with the appropriate balance of story and action.

Despite X-Men: First Class having a lot of characters, you don't really learn that much about the characters aside from Erik Lehnsherr (Magneto) and Charles Xavier (Professor X), though they are clearly the central figures in this story. Perhaps the title of the film is deceiving because it seems like we should learn more about the formation of the X-Men, but we learn very little about them, who they are, what makes them tick, or how they discovered their powers. We can see them training and honing their powers, but it's never really clear why they want to be part of a team to begin with. There is the exception of Hank McCoy (Beast) and Raven (Mystique) who do share a bond in the difficulty they have in accepting who they are. A lot of careful thought is put into establishing their pathos, for good reason, as Mystique is a prominent figure in the trilogy and Beast is an original X-Man in the comics and appears in X-Men: The Last Stand. However, the other "original" X-Men have virtually no backstory and don't appear at all in the trilogy making you wonder why even introduce these characters in the first place. With no backstory at all or any lines of significance, why should you even care for these characters? Also not to nit-pick since this film exists outside of the continuity of the official Marvel canon, but this film takes a lot of liberties with the X-Men mythos. For example, Havok and Banshee are NOT part of the original X-Men (neither is Mystique for that matter). Even if you didn't know that you still have to wonder why they're not in the trilogy and why prominent figures like Cyclops and Jean Gray aren't in this film.

We certainly learn a lot about Erik, who is arguably the protagonist of this film, and why and how he becomes Magneto. As a child, Erik was a Jew in the Nazi concentration camps during World War Two and saw untold atrocities. He is scarred permanently becoming vengeful and cynical of the world. However, his arc is already complete in the first portion of the movie. He doesn't suddenly become a monster at the end, he already is one in the beginning, making his story not progress at all, but delaying the inevitable.

There is a great deal of time spent on establishing the film's complicated plot which has more to with revising a little history and less to do with mutants. A lot of time is spent on Cold War politicking showing the United States and Russia being manipulated into potentially starting WW3 with each other. There are some issues of civil rights as much of the mutants' conversations revolve around acceptance and prejudice. Clearly the writers wanted to establish the setting of the movie, but how about focusing more on telling a better story?

I've been noticing this a lot lately in movies, but it seems like every team gathering plot has to be done in the most campy way possible. When Erik and Charles go around trying to recruit a team, the tone suddenly attempts to be humorous and the quality of the film goes way down. I can't decide which scene is worse in this year's blockbusters, this or the one in Fast Five.

I'm kind of surprised and disappointed to say this, but I was a bit underwhelmed by the action in this movie. Part of it is seeing stuff I've seen before, another part is that the mutants' powers in this movie are kind of boring that don't really lead to many cool special effects. The exception of course is Erik, who can levitate submarines and stop missiles mid-air. I do wish that Emma Frost (played by January Jones, Betty from Mad Men) had more screen time, as her powers are pretty interesting and she has an evil seductiveness to her to boot.

I'll be the first to admit that I enjoy the comic book genre. I used to collect comic books after all, so these films appeal to my inner child. I've seen great ones and I've seen some pretty horrific ones and X-Men: First Class falls somewhere in between. It's acceptable as two hours of entertainment, but all this talk about being the best comic book film since The Dark Knight is a little premature. It's not even as good as Marvel's own Thor released less than a month ago. Still, given how much I disliked X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, this film is a step in the right direction for the X-Men franchise. It got all the obligatory backstories out the way so that the next installment (I think a sequel has already been planned) should be able to run smoothly.

Grade: C+