The super hero genre in movies has been loading up with adaptations from DC and Marvel Comics primarily from the glorious Silver Age of Comics. In most cases, these incarnations have taken on a stunning visual realism with state of the art technology and pyrotechnics, but what separates the cream of the crop like Spiderman 2 and The Dark Knight from the rest is great acting and a superior script. Having scored less than impressive results with X Men: Wolverine and Last Stand, the reboot of the franchise, X Men: First Class, is a prequel that reinvigorates with a fresh cast, elaborate script (Ashley Miller and Jack Stentz) and solid direction by Matthew Vaughn (Kick Ass) who has proven himself in this genre.
During World War II, a young boy, Erik, is separated from his parents by ruthless Nazis and tormented by a sadistic doctor, Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon), who forces Erik to unleash his power of magnetism over metal. Meanwhile in a mansion in New York, a young, telepathic Charles Xavier befriends a fellow mutant named Raven who can morph into any person. Years later in 1962, an adult Erik (Michael Fassbinder) searches the world for Sebastian to exact revenge even as Charles is thriving at Oxford University. In Las Vegas, CIA agent Moira McTaggert (Rose Byrne) infiltrates a strip club and spies Sebastian Shaw planning to engineer a Cold War conflict with the Russians. Sebastian is aided by a roster of evil mutants including Emma Frost (January Jones). Moira and the CIA seek the help of Xavier who realizes that there are other mutants in the world, and he must seek them out. As Erik closes on Sebastian, he comes in contact with Charles, now realizing he, too is not alone as a mutant, and joins forces with Charles’ growing roster of young mutants including an increasingly restless Raven AKA Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence). Each discovered mutant has a distinctive power and a unique name or moniker (Charles becomes Professor X and Erik is Magneto). After a deadly attack by Sebastian and his mutants at a CIA compound, Charles and an ever vengeful Erik set about to train their raw recruits to face Sebastian as he steers the Russians on a collision course with the Americans in Cuba. With a global war imminent, Sebastian reveals a deeper, more insidious plan that could mean the end of humanity. The action filled climax is a visual feast that has a stunning display of military might versus the mutant super powers and sets the stage for betrayal and realigning allegiances.
This is a handsomely mounted production, with visual effects that serve the story and its super mutants in ways that could not be convincingly rendered a generation before. When a young Erik displays destructive power in front of his Nazi captors, it harkens back to Drew Barrymore’s burning apocalypse in Firestarter. Lending realism to otherwise unworldly characters, the dialogue frequently switches to German, Russian, French and Spanish as the setting dictates, and the fashion styles and news footage lend an air of period authenticity, although trying to integrate events like the Cuban Missile Crisis requires some suspension of disbelief.
The film succeeds in portraying the mutants as a metaphor for racial discrimination and being treated as commodities by each respective side of the impending war. There are moral dilemmas as these kids express feelings and doubts including the question of whether they should accept being different or conform to the human race. Witness the interesting parallels with the Nazi genocide of World War II, and how Erik ironically assumes some of the corrupt evil from Sebastian, the very individual he hates.
This is a very attractive, talented group of actors led by McAvoy (Atonement), sounding like a grown up Harry Potter with a commanding presence and a deliciously charming Fassbender (quite effective in Inglourious Basterds) who is destined to conquer heroic or villainous roles for years to come. Bacon is featured prominently and has a field day hamming it up as the scheming Sebastian who is clearly modeled after Nazi doctor Josef Mengele. The scenes as Charles and Erik search for mutants are quite fun, and there are a couple of clever cameos.
The film has echoes of traditional James Bond films with its iconic evil characters bent on world domination. That’s not a bad thing. Whether the box office will garner a direct sequel remains to be seen. Perhaps the one thing lacking is that it does not engage the audience the way films like Raiders of the Lost Ark and Spiderman did. The same sort of thing plagued the original Lara Croft: Tomb Raider film, only more so. What comic book enthusiasts will savor is a fairly entertaining recreation of what we know as the X Men, and while things don’t perfectly mesh with the original X Men canon, this is a slick, intelligent attempt to rejuvenate a franchise much as J. J. Abrams’ Star Trek relaunched that series.
*** of **** stars (add ½ * for Marvel fanatics)
