X-Men: First Class - A New Beginning

After the success of the of the original X-Men trilogy, a plan was devised to create two prequels: a Wolverine prequel detailed his origins for the first time in film, and a Magneto movie either detailing how his line of thinking came about after aiding Charles Xavier for so many years or about his re-emergence after the events of X-Men: The Last Stand where he gets his powers back in the final second of the movie. Although X-Men Origins: Wolverine was a financial success, the movie was critically panned and hated by fans. The visual effects were terrible, Sabretooth's origins were retconned in a ludicrous way, Wolverine's amneisa was caused in an equally dumb way, and several future X-Men were introduced with very strange ages, like Scott Summers (Cyclops) and Emma Frost being in high school in 1979, which would make Professor X about 44, far too young to have a completely bald head as he was portrayed.

With Wolverine's lack of positive reception, the plans for a Magneto movie fell through. Instead, Fox, Marvel, Bryan Singer, and Richard Donner decided to make a loose prequel and partial reboot to the X-Men franchise. This way, they could tell the Magneto movie they wanted, but also make a new X-Men movie in a world where comic book movies were now expected to be much more faithful to the source material.


X-Men: First Class makes a few attempts to make sure that it is not a direct prequel to any of the X-Men films, including the appearances of several characters that have the "wrong" ages or tweaks to characters' backgrounds. This is similar in concept to the comic of the same name, which was a re-telling of the X-Men origin story. In the film, most of the action takes place in 1962, on the eve of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Through the events of the film, the mutants become involved in the Crisis, narrowly averting it before the U.S. and U.S.S.R. unilaterally declare war on mutants.

The story is incredibly predictable, but there are 2 cameos from Hugh Jackman and Rebecca Romijn that were unexpected. Jackman appears as Wolverine, recruited by Prof. X and Magneto, but he "rejects" them. Romijn appears as Mystique's older self in a scene where Raven displays her powers are not limited to just changing her form into another person; she can deliberately age herself as well.

Where this movie stands out (despite the predictable story) is the acting. James McAvoy as Charles Xavier, Michael Fassbender as Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto, and Jennifer Lawrence as Raven Darkholme/Mystique really stand out. Although Jennifer Lawrence is an Oscar-nominated actress, nobody saw Winter's Bone, so this film is going to be everyone's first exposure to her. The other characters are somewhat interesting, but the film makes pretty clear early that Xavier, Magneto, and Mystique are the main characters.

Final Score: 4 Magneto helmets out of 5

I fully support another X-Men film being made if it follows First Class in the story. As much as I like the original X-Men, that movie was really about Wolverine meeting the X-Men, an already existing group with little background given. This film gives a clear origin to every character, as well as the concept of the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Mutants. If a sequel is made, I'd love to see how the film decides to ignore the events of X-Men Origins: Wolverine and give a new reason for Wolverine to join the X-Men rather than being kidnapped.

X-Men is dead. Long live X-Men: First Class.