X-MEN: FIRST CLASS (review)

By Bill Hendee

I admit to being more than a little apprehensive about super-hero movies as their marketshare at the multiplex grows.

This is a genre with as many misfires as hits, a tendency to lean heavily on tired formula tropes, and a history of fast franchise fatigue.

As both a prequel and a soft-reboot, X-Men: First Class looks like the perfect candidate for the kind of disappointment I have come to expect from super-hero cinema.

Instead, director Matthew Vaughn offers up a fresh spin on the familiar X-Men franchise in a solid 131-minute super-powered spy-fi joy ride.

The film opens in familiar territory: the Nazi concentration camp where young Erik Lehnsherr, after being forcibly separated from his mother, first exhibits his mutant ability to control metal. This is where original franchise director (and producer this time around) Bryan Singer introduced audiences to the world of the X-Men in the series’ first film. It is an effective lead-in that lets viewers know that X-Men: First Class is firmly rooted in the story they are already invested in. At the same time, it breaks new ground by exploring the origins of the relationship between Lehnsherr and Professor Charles Xavier which drives the action and the drama of the previous X-Men movies. It also provides a perfect jumping on point for new viewers.

While detained at the camp, Lehnsherr is tormented by Dr. Schmidt (Kevin Bacon, doing his Kevin Bacon thing), a self-serving scientist bent on unlocking the full potential of the boy’s mutant gift. Meanwhile, an ocean away, young Charles Xavier is wakened late one night by an intruder in his Westchester, New York, mansion. Xavier, a mutant with telepathic abilities, discovers that the woman who appears to be his mother is in fact a shape-shifting girl named Raven, whom audiences will recognize as Mystique from the previous films. Pleased to have discovered another mutant like himself, the irrepressibly idealistic Xavier befriends the homeless waif and takes her into his home.

These disparate beginnings set Lehnsherr and Xavier on wildly different paths that will converge at the height of JFK’s Camelot.

The adult Xavier (James McAvoy) has completed his education at Oxford where he has specialized in genetics with Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) in tow. Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender) has spent the years since the war tracking down his Nazi persecutors and closing in on Dr. Schmidt, who now calls himself Sebastian Shaw. Xavier and Raven are recruited by CIA agent Moira McTaggart (Rose Byrne) after she discovers that Shaw and his group of mutants are involved in shady dealings with both the United States military and the U.S.S.R. Foiled by their common enemy, Xavier and Lehnsherr team-up to build a team of mutants that can oppose Shaw’s plans.

X-Men: First Class is at its strongest when Fassbender and McAvoy explore the powerful, nuanced friendship between Lehnsherr and Xavier.

Both men are products of their backgrounds. Lehnsherr believes that mutants will never peacefully co-exist in a world where normal humans fear and hate them. Xavier, buoyed by an affluent upbringing and an almost naive optimism, seeks understanding and assimilation. The early 1960’s backdrop– America on the one hand at its most idealistic, on the other struggling with changing attitudes about race and gender roles– provides the perfect setting for the story’s allegorical themes about society’s relationship with otherness.

Despite their opposing outlooks, Xavier is committed to helping Lehnsherr unlock the full potential of his powers as both men race to thwart Shaw’s genocidal scheme.

McAvoy brings a youthful exuberance to Charles Xavier while telescoping the seriousness of purpose of the man he will one day become. The continuity of his performance provides an anchor between X-Men: First Class and the previous films. It is not hard to imagine how the character becomes the older, more seasoned champion of mutant rights originally portrayed by Patrick Stewart.

Fassbender is a powerful presence who owns nearly every scene.

Playing a riff on James Bond, Fassbender’s Lehnsherr is a man driven by deadly purpose in his pursuit of Kevin Bacon’s Blofeld-like Sebastian Shaw. And like the best Bonds, Fassbender manages to reveal his wounded core to the audience while maintaining his icy facade on screen.

Jennifer Lawrence turns out a strong performance as the shape-shifter Raven.

Lawrence brings a vulnerability to the role that underscores Raven’s struggle to find acceptance despite a mutation that is physically obvious. Her arc explores the film’s themes of alienation and assimilation much more effectively than the numerous quips peppered throughout the script.

The one performance that falls short is that of January Jones as Shaw’s colleague, Emma Frost.

Frost is a telepath who also possesses the ability to turn her skin into diamond. While clearly meant to be an icy, manipulative dominatrix– in addition to being the film’s female lead– Jones plays Frost as a plastic Playboy Barbie. Her bland, phoned-in delivery feels like a missed opportunity and barely sets her apart from Shaw’s other mutant minions.

Besides strong central characters, the other stand-out feature of X-Men: First Class is its playful genre bending and endless homages to ’60s and ’70s pop culture. The production team has borrowed liberally from sources as far afield as Dr. Strangelove and Enter the Dragon in creating a pop culture playground for their characters to inhabit. And while super-powers dominate the numerous clever action set pieces, the production design underscores that X-Men: First Class is as much a high tech spy-fi thriller in the spirit of classic Bond as it is a summer super-hero blockbuster.

Evenly paced and packed with action from start to finish, X-Men: First Class captures the spirit of the original films while bringing a new spin to the material. It’s a fun film, and don’t be surprised if you find yourself rooting for Magneto.