X-Men First Class

akiratubo · June 03, 2011, 08:31:02 PM

I thought this was going to be completely horrible, but it was sort of ok. The acting is decent and the plot works. The effects work is excellent, with one conspicuous exception. Emma Frost's diamond form is especially cool. Also, the movie doesn't mercilessly hammer you with non-stop comedy! Hallelujah! I thought genre movies that take themselves more or less seriously were extinct. Special mention goes to Kevin Bacon, who looks perfect in the part of Sebastian Shaw, nails the character, and he effortlessly walks off with the movie while he's at it.

There are plenty of problems, though. The "training montage" part drags on. January Jones looks the part of Emma Frost, but she cannot act. At all. It's painful every time she opens her mouth. The final battle is mostly Magneto and Professor X making faces while waving their hands at stuff. The other X-Men hardly do anything. The flying fight between Banshee and some chick with fairy wings named Angel is extremely lame. Oh, and in an absolutely scrape-your-jaw-off-the-floor moment ... they kill the black guy first. They go miles out of their way to kill the black guy first. It's unbelievable.

Anyway, it's maybe worth a matinée. Otherwise, you can safely wait until the dollar theater.

I think my favorite thing about this movie was spotting the cameos.

James Remar!
Ray Wise!!
Michael Ironside!!!
etc.

A_Dubya · June 04, 2011, 11:31:35 AM

Honestly, I really really liked this movie. Perhaps it was due to me having very low expectations of it, and being pleasantly surprised, or maybe it was just how things tied together towards the end. I admit, at first, things are very slow to start off, and I had a little bit of trouble getting into the whole CIA storyline with Moira McTaggert, but towards the middle, I felt the film shined in various areas.

To be quite frank, I had 0 interest in this X-Men film when I first saw the pictures, and actors. The cast list did not have some of my favorite previous X-Men characters, and it all seemed "meh" to me. I became more and more excited about it, however, once the 6/3/2011 date came closer and closer. Strange, huh?

My favorite thing throughout the film, is the relationship between Charles Xavier and Magneto. I always enjoyed the friendship they shared, and how they had such a dichotomy with their different philosophies on mutantkind and a coexistence with humans.

While I agree that there were some problems, I don't see it as a huge dtractor from the film, and I actually found the last part where they are just "making faces while waving their hands at stuff" to be quite well-done given what their powers are. True, the other X-Men didn't do too much, and I wasn't quite certain who the girl with wings was, I enjoyed it immensely as a whole package. I've always been a HUGE X-Men fan, and I came in thinking this would be the worst film of the series. I can happily say I was wrong about that, and I would rate this 2nd or 3rd amongst best ones after X2 and X-Men 1.

Also, the black guy dying did not really resonate the same way with me. I'm a black guy, and at no time did I go "hey what the f***? they killed a black guy first!!" There were many other people killed by Magneto before this happened, so it didn't bother me much. I was in a theater in Detroit, with about 90% black viewers, and I doubt that that was the mood or feeling folks here got when it happened either. I was more paying attention to how Shaw said "slave" and then looked right at him though. LOL.
Just my take.

4/5 stars from me

A_Dubya · June 04, 2011, 05:46:03 PM

Also, where was James Remar at?

akiratubo · June 04, 2011, 06:04:06 PM

Quote from: A_Dubya on June 04, 2011, 05:46:03 PM
Also, where was James Remar at?

He was the guy pointing at the map in the war room.

InformationGeek · June 04, 2011, 06:35:17 PM

I've been hearing good things about this movie, some even calling it the best Marvel film yet, which is saying a lot since it is competing with Iron Man and Spider-Man 2. I'll check it out at some point, but right now, I'm saving my money for Green Lantern. Too much of a fan not to see that.

akiratubo · June 04, 2011, 09:37:41 PM

Quote from: InformationGeek on June 04, 2011, 06:35:17 PM
I've been hearing good things about this movie, some even calling it the best Marvel film yet, which is saying a lot since it is competing with Iron Man and Spider-Man 2. I'll check it out at some point, but right now, I'm saving my money for Green Lantern. Too much of a fan not to see that.

Well, I think it's better than Iron Man or Spider-Man 2, but I wasn't the biggest fan of those movies to begin with. I think my original post might have sounded more critical than I meant it to. First Class is actually pretty good, but not worth more than a matinee price, IMHO. It's worth seeing just for Kevin Bacon. The man could easily become the go-to guy for lovably sleazy villains now that James Woods has mostly retired.

The only really insurmountable problem First Class has is one I forgot to mention. It's also kind of spoilerific, so be warned. *see below*

Beast's transformation occurs so late in the movie that they don't have time to do anything with it. It's just like, "Hey, I'm a monster now." "Ok, cool." And that's it. Had his transformation taken place earlier, they could have mined it for all sorts of character building scenes.

Hammock Rider · June 05, 2011, 04:25:38 AM

Maybe it's because I'm a wee bit older but the trailers made it look too much like Smallville meets Gossip Girl or something in that area. I'll probably catch it at a 2nd run theater.

Criswell · June 05, 2011, 04:47:03 AM

How does it compare to Origins - Wolverine? I really didn't like that one.

dean · June 05, 2011, 06:59:18 AM

Quote from: Criswell on June 05, 2011, 04:47:03 AM
How does it compare to Origins - Wolverine? I really didn't like that one.

I haven't seen First Class, but I don't see how it can be worse than Wolverine...

Rev. Powell · June 07, 2011, 08:16:57 PM

Disclaimer: I've never seen any of the other X-MEN films, never read any of the comics, and I don't normally like any superhero movies not featuring Batman (I did like WATCHMEN, though).

*I though it was OK to good; I enjoyed it while watching it, but I've almost completely forgotten it already.

*This movie would give WyreWizard a stroke trying to address all the "reality flaws."

*It seems like there was no excuse for one character not to kill another character in one of the very first scenes, except that I guess there would have been no movie if he did.

*Kevin Bacon was surprisingly good as a villain.

*Jennifer Lawrence is much hotter than January Jones.

I give it a 3/5 but expect most on here would rate it higher.

akiratubo · June 07, 2011, 08:50:31 PM

Quote from: Rev. Powell on June 07, 2011, 08:16:57 PM*It seems like there was no excuse for one character not to kill another character in one of the very first scenes, except that I guess there would have been no movie if he did.

He probably couldn't have. He probably couldn't have killed him at the end, either, without the help he was getting.

rebel_1812 · June 09, 2011, 03:13:57 PM

I liked it. It is one of the best x-men films. There was alot of character growth and it build up to the much larger plot.

melvinthemopboy3 · June 10, 2011, 10:25:58 AM

I really liked this one. Probably my favorite of all the X-Men films (haven't seen part 2 in a while, I remember it being pretty solid). Setting it in the 60s was the best choice they could have made, and I'd love to see a sequel where the X-Men fight in Vietnam or something like that. Michael Fassbender was great as Magneto, and I thought Jennifer Lawrence brought a lot of needed character to the part of Mystique. The only weak part in my mind was the ending, which seemed kind of rushed. Very entertaining though.

Ted C · June 13, 2011, 03:19:52 PM

I rank it number three among the X-Men movies (behind X-Men and X2, ahead of X3). Whoever wrote the script is really in love with Magneto, though.

This board needs some spoiler tags.

Jim H · June 13, 2011, 04:25:21 PM

Enjoyable film. Really good characterizations of Prof. X and Magneto, both in writing and acting. I thought the action scenes were decent, but didn't focus enough on showing what was going on (like the scene with Azazel, where the camera keeps cutting away from him). Really good bits of humor. The storyline was pretty good. The film has an air of competence greatly lacking from Origins and X-Men 3.

I do have a number of issues... I didn't like how Darwin was handled, the Angel character was worthless and her choices didn't make much sense, Beast's look was bad, Oliver Platt was kind of wasted, etc. Nothing at an individual level was terrible, just lots of things that bugged me. Still an overall solid film.

I'm waffling between a 7 or an 8 out of 10. I'd say it does rank up there around the same level as X1 or X2.