X-Men: First Class (2011) starring James McAvoy,
Michael Fassbender, Rose Byrne, January Jones, Oliver Platt, Kevin Bacon.
Directed by Matthew Vaughn. Screenplay by Ashley Edward Miller, Zack Stentz,
Jane Goldman, Matthew Vaughn. Based on X-Men by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby. Produced
by Lauren Shuler Donner, Bryan Singer, Simon Kinberg, Gregory Goodman USA/UK,
Color, Run time: 132 minutes. Superhero.
Following a trilogy of X-Men films and a rather disappointing X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), 20th Century Fox, which had the license for the franchise, decided make X-Men: First Class. While viewed by some as a prequel, it is really a reboot of the series. We’ll get to more of that later but the film is a sign of a franchise in free-fall. Unlike the MCU, which was planned out for nearly a decade of films, X-Men seemed to be making it up as it went along.
Originally, the film was conceived as a prequel for the
series by producer Lauren Shuler Donner, another producer, Simon Kinberg, had
the idea of adapting of the comic series X-Men: First Class. By the time
the film was released, it was considered a reboot, since the final film
contradicts some events of previous films.
Originally, Brian Singer who had directed both X-Men
and X2, became involved with the project in 2009, but he could only
produce and co-write First Class due to his work on other projects. Matthew
Vaughn, who at the time might be best known for Layer Cake (2004)
starring future Bond, Daniel Craig. Vaughn, of course, rewrote the script with
his writing partner Jane Goldman. Shot on location in Oxford, the Mojave Desert
and Georgia, as well as in Pinewood Studios in the UK and 20th
Century Fox in Hollywood starting in August 2010, with a budget of between $140
to 160 million. The film premiered on May 25, 2011 but opened wide in the U.S.
on June 3, 2011.
Like X-Men, First Class opens in 1944, at the
Auschwitz concentration camp in German-occupied Poland. As his parents are
being taken away for extermination, a young
Erik Lehnsherr (Bill Milner) reaches out for them and in his state of
anger and sorrow, bends the metal gates with his mind. This is witnessed
by Nazi officer Klaus Schmidt (Kevin
Bacon) who has Erik brought to his office. He wants him to show his telekinetic
abilities by moving a coin on his desk. When Erik tries and can’t do it,
Schmidt ups the ante and has guards bring Erik’s mother (Teresa Mahoney) to the
room. Unless Erik can move the coin by the time he counts to three, Schmidt
will shoot his mother. When Erik cannot do it, Schmidt doesn’t hesitate to
shoot her dead. Distraught, Erik's magnetic power manifests, destroying the
room, and killing the guards.
Meanwhile, a half a world away, child telepath, Charles
Xavier (Laurence Belcher), aged 12, finds Raven (Morgan Lily) age 12, in the
mansion’s kitchen disguised as his mother. But Charles sees through the ruse.
He seems unperturbed by her, mostly happy to meet someone who is like him, a
mutant. He invited her to live with him and she agrees.
Fast forward to 1962, Erik is tracking Schmidt, while Xavier
is earning his doctorate from the University of Oxford and trying to pick up
co-eds, even while he’s with Raven (Jennifer Lawrence).
Meanwhile, in Las Vegas, CIA officer Moira MacTaggert
(Rose Byrne) follows U.S. Army Colonel Hendry (Glenn Morshower) into the
Hellfire Club. Disguised as a prostitute, she sees Schmidt (now called
Sebastian Shaw) with mutant telepath Emma Frost (January Jones),
cyclone-producing Riptide (Álex González) and teleporter Azazel (Jason Flemyng).
Shaw, who wants to start World War III, wants Hendry to advocate for the US to
deploy nuclear weapons in Turkey. But Hendry doesn’t think that’s a good idea. Threatened
by Shaw, Hendry is teleported into the Joint War Room. While Moira tries to
warn her boss, CIA Director McCone (Matt Craven) about Hendry, they are both in
the War Room. Hendry advocates deploying nuclear missiles in Turkey.
Later, Shaw, himself an
energy-absorbing mutant whose powers have kept him young, kills Hendry after
the General tries to explode a hand grenade to kill Shaw.
Looking for someone who is an
expert on mutants, Moira tracks down Xavier at Oxford just after he’s received
his doctorate. She brings him back to the CIA and tries to convince McCone that
mutants really exist. He dismisses Xavier’s theory but a demonstration
convinces him. And he agrees that Shaw is a threat.
Another CIA officer, Man in Black Suit (Oliver Platt) invites him to his
secret “Division X” facility but Moira joins them before they leave. They
manage to track down Shaw and the CIA launches an attack but Shaw is able to
repel them. However, Erik is there and is so intent on killing Shaw by
squeezing the submarine Shaw uses that he almost drowns. It takes Xavier
jumping into the water to talk him down. Shaw, though, escapes.
Xavier brings Erik to Division X,
where they meet Hank McCoy, (Nicholas Hoult) the chief scientist, who turns out
to be a mutant with prehensile feet. Xavier uses McCoy's invention, a mutant-locating
device, called Cerebro, to seek out other mutants. Xavier and Erik then set out
to recruit them, including stripper
Angel Salvadore (Zoë Kravitz), who has dragon fly wings and can spit acidic
saliva; a cabbie Armando Muñoz (Edi Gathegi), who has the ability of
"reactive evolution”; an Army prisoner Alex Summers (Lucas Till), who has
the ability to absorb energy and discharge it as blast; and a drifter Sean
Cassidy (Caleb Landry Jones), an American mutant capable of emitting incredibly
strong ultrasonic screams, sonic blasts, sonic bursts, and sonic waves used in
various ways. They do fail, however, to recruit Logan (Hugh Jackman) who
doesn’t want any part of their enterprise.
 |
| Logan (Hugh Jackman) is not interested in joining and tells them so. |
At Division X, the recruits bond
and give each other nicknames. Raven takes the name Mystique; Erik gets names
Magneto, etc.
Xavier, Erik, and Moira lead a mission to the Soviet Union
to capture Frost and discover Shaw’s plans using World War III to trigger
mutant ascendency.
 |
| The First Class: Hank McCoy, (Nicholas Hoult), Sean Cassidy (Caleb Landry Jones), Angel Salvadore (Zoë Kravitz), Raven (Jennifer Lawrence), Alex Summers (Lucas Till), and Armando Muñoz (Edi Gathegi). |
Back in Moscow, Shaw compels the Russian General (Rade
Serbedzija) to have the USSR install missiles in Cuba.
Wearing a helmet that blocks telepathy, Shaw follows the
Soviet fleet in a submarine to ensure the missiles break a U.S. blockade that
has drawn a line around Cuba.
 |
| Xavier's boyhood home where the mutants go to train. |
In the meantime, Xavier takes the remaining recruits back to his mansion where they focus on training and harnessing their abilities. McCoy believes Raven's DNA may provide a "cure" for their appearance and manages to get a cure ready on the night before they leave. Raven, after being persuaded by Erik that she has nothing to be ashamed about, decides she doesn't want to hide her identity and refuses the cure. McCoy, however, uses the cure on himself but it backfires, giving him blue fur and leonine aspects. Raven, who had been interested in McCoy, tries to sleep with Erik but he turns her down.
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| Raven aka Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) tries to tempt Erik (Michael Fassbender). |
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| McCoy flies the X-Men to the front lines. |
Xavier uses his telepathy to influence a Soviet sailor to fire missiles at and destroying the ship carrying the missiles; Azazel escapes at the last second. Erik, meanwhile, uses his magnetic power to lift Shaw's submarine from the water, depositing it on land.
Meanwhile, the jet carrying Moira and the mutants is hit by gunfire and goes down on the same island as the submarine.
Erik goes onboard the sub and manages to seize Shaw's
helmet, allowing Xavier to immobilize Shaw. While Shaw is helpless, Erik
reveals he shares Shaw's exclusivist view of mutants, but desires to avenge his
mother, so he uses his power to kill Shaw by pushing a Nazi coin he's been
carrying since childhood through Shaw's brain, killing him.
 |
| Erik, now Magneto (Michael Fassbender) turns back the missiles. |
Fearful of the mutants, both fleets fire at the island, but Erik intercepts them and turns them back to the towards the fleet. Xavier tries to stop him but Erik, now wearing Shaw’s helmet, overpowers him. Moira tries to stop Erik by shooting him, but he deflects the bullets, one of which hits Xavier in the spine.
Erik rushes to help Xavier and, distracted, allows the
artillery to fall harmlessly into the ocean.
Parting with Xavier over their differing views on the
relationship between mutants and humans, Erik leaves with Salvadore, Azazel,
Riptide and Raven, who is momentarily torn due to her long relationship with
Xavier.
Later, a wheelchair-using Xavier and his mutants returns to
the mansion, where he intends to open a school. Moira promises Xavier never to
reveal his location, but Xavier makes sure of this by wiping her memories.
Meanwhile, Erik, now calling himself Magneto, and the other
Hellfire Club members free Frost from her prison.
When released, the film made $353.6 million worldwide and
received mostly positive reviews. Typical was Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood
Reporter who described the film as "audacious, confident and fueled by
youthful energy", and said that "director Vaughn impressively
maintains a strong focus dedicated to clarity and dramatic power ... and
orchestrates the mayhem with a laudable coherence, a task made easier by a
charging, churning score by Henry Jackman ..."
Peter Howell of the Toronto Star called it "a
blockbuster with brains" and said Vaughn "brings similar freshness to
this comic creation as he did to Kick-Ass, and manages to do so while hewing to
the saga's serious dramatic intent."
While I’m not familiar with the book it is supposedly based
on, it is my understanding that it doesn’t follow that book very closely. This
was apparently intentional. Producer Simon Kinberg, who read the comics and
suggested studio 20th Century Fox to adapt it, did not want to follow the comic
too much, as he felt "it was not fresh enough in terms of storytelling.”
He considered it too similar to Twilight and John Hughes movies. He also
wanted an adaptation that would introduce new, hitherto unexplored X-Men
characters.
The story moves along very well and there is really never a dull moment. While none of the actors are the same ones from the previous trilogy, and don’t, for the most part carry the same gravitas of its stars, they do a good job with their parts. This is especially true of James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender. The latter was even awarded Best Actor by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards for this and his roles in Shame, A Dangerous Method, and Jane Eyre all released the same year as First Class. Fassbender does show that he has range.
 |
| James McAvoy as a young Professor Charles Xavier. |
McAvoy gives Xavier a different sort of background than you
might expect. As a young man, he was not only smart but also flirtatious. He
seems to make a connection with Moira, though he tries with other women
throughout the story. It’s somewhat surprising he doesn’t seem to be interested
in Raven, played by Jennifer Lawrence, who it seems is interested in him; at
least she’s jealous of the attention he’s paying to other women.
Villain is not something you readily associate with Kevin
Bacon, though he has played a rather narcissistic one in Hollow Man (2000).
It shows a certain range for someone who is perhaps best known for his dancing
in the original Footloose. He
plays Shaw with a certain subtlety that works. Like best villains, the worst
ones, he doesn’t seem to care about who he has to go through to get what he
wants. He may not have been my first choice but he does a good job.
 |
| Klaus Schmidt (Kevin Bacon) now Sebastian Shaw talking with right-hand woman Emma Frost (January Jones), |
The film sort of makes him out to be a Bond villain with apparently a lot of money to support his lifestyle, which not only includes a yacht but also a nuclear-powered submarine, something every villain needs in the early 1960s.
You also might not think of Jennifer Lawrence in a superhero
film, but she does a good job as Mystique. This was fairly early in her career,
a year before The Hunger Games, and two years before Silver Linings
Playbook, for which she would win an Academy Award at the ripe old age of
22. She’s a good actress but she doesn’t bring all that much to the role that
Rebecca Romijn didn’t in her turn with the part.
If you’re still not convinced, there are several points at
which this film shows it is not a prequel to the original story. One of the
biggest is that in the original trilogy, Cerebro, we’re told was built by
Xavier and Magneto; in this film, it was built by the CIA’s Dr. Hank McCoy at
the direction of the Man in Black Suit. This was back when the two of them were
working together at the school.
And in X-Men: The Last Stand the two of them go
together to meet Jean Gray, something that wouldn’t make sense now. And, in
that movie, we see that Xavier is walking when they do, something else that
would be made impossible by the time X-Men: First Class concludes.
Set in the early 60’s against the backdrop of the very real,
Cuban Missile Crisis, First Class does a pretty good job setting the
mood with songs appropriate for the times. However, I don’t think people were
saying “groovy” until a few years after Xavier is saying it trying to pick up a
Co-Ed in 1962.
Despite that slight misstep, the film is fun to watch as
long as you’re not counting on it fitting smoothly into the already established
X-Men universe. This is not a prequel but rather a separate timeline, which
will be retconned later to be a prequel to X-Men (2000) by X-Men:
Days of Future Past (2014) also directed by Vaughn, but more on that film a
future review.
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