X-Men: First Class Movie Blurb by Shale June 3, 2011 For all my fellow comic book movie nerds reading this: GO SEE THIS MOVIE! OK, I realize you have already seen this movie and likely blown away by it as I was. I will also be seeing it at least one more time in theater and will have it on DVD. This is the story alluded to in the other X-Men movies. We know that Magneto and Professor X were once friends and it is not just sarcasm that these two arch rivals refer to each other in those movies as "Old Friend." This shows the early meetings and relationships of the first class of mutants in the 1960s. Movie opens with a scene that we've seen before, where Erik Lehnsherr is separated from his family in a Nazi death camp and he exhibits his mutant power to control metal. While that was the end of the scene in the previous movie this follows the logical sequence that the Nazi's would try to weaponize this boy's ability and he is given to a Dr. Schmidt (Kevin Bacon) who does experiments on him and murders his mother in front of him to make him comply. We then go to that beautiful NY mansion that we know as "Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters." But this is 1944 and Charles Xavier is just a kid who is hiding his psychic abilities just as Raven, whom he finds pilfering his fridge one nite is hiding hers. They become self-adoptive brother and sister. Of course I was a kid during the '40s. I knew all the reality and paranoia of nuclear warfare (a duck & cover kid) and how it was feared fallout would affect mutations. Hence, the premise of our movie - mutants were the product of the atomic age. The movie then jumps to the present (early 60s) with a young Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) becoming known for his theories on genome and mutations being approached by a Dr. Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne) a CIA operative who is aware of mutants with super powers and wants some expert advice. Meanwhile, Erik (Michael Fassbender) has been tracking down the Nazi Death Camp monsters in his search for Schmidt who is now Sebastian Shaw. But, Shaw is not just a former Nazi hiding out as a pig farmer in Argentina. He is searching out mutants and building a gang to help him bring about a thermonuclear war between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. His plan is to wipe out inferior humans and increase the abilities of the mutants thru radiation. He already has a hard-skinned psychic Emma Frost (January Jones) as a partner. Shaw & Frost So, Charles and Erik, while chasing the same man separately run into each other and work together with the CIA Division X and become comrades in arms. Charles & Erik - BFF (well, maybe not forever) They locate other mutants with a prototype of Cerebro, being built by a brilliant scientist, Dr. Henry McCoy (Nicholas Hoult). Some amusing scenes where Charles and Erik go out recruiting the mutants that they found using Cerebro. And of course Charles "sister" Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) is there by his side with these new duties of recruitment and adjustment to a mutant force. It is the new students that come up with the names for Professor X, Magneto and Mystique. The X-Men First Class Training Things heat up between the United States and Soviet Union and it is coming to a showdown as the Cuban Missile Crisis (with TV footage of JFK and Nikita Khrushchev). The X-men go into action. X-Men in Yellow Uniforms I already told you how much I love this movie. It was a good story, good character development, good special effects and good acting. Also, there were several languages spoken by the characters and I like that they were real with English subtitles. (HATE English dialogue with German, French, Russian accents when you know they should be speaking their native language.) I think I like this movie better than any of the others, but maybe because I was a part of the history in which this story takes place. There are many answers to the questions posed by other movies and we actually see some of the characters evolve into their special mutant powers. Some comic book fanatics will not like that it does not adhere to canon, or even to the previous movies. Try to overlook that and enjoy the show. It was fun.
My question is: was this better than the vastly overrated first two, or the slightly overhated (but still kinda bad) third one? The previews made me feel pretty uneasy about it. (Because of how out of canon it was) But everything I've heard was very good.
You may have heard right. Upper 80 percent of reviewers and audiences liked it on Rottentomatoes. Our local critic, Rene Rodriguez of the Miami Herald gave it 3 stars out of four. He mentioned that X-Men United movie was the best and this a close second to that. He also mentioned the third movie wasn't good. So, there is its standing according to ppl who study movies. IDK, I only watch them and as I said really enjoyed this one.
Good Review Shale. I haven't been out to the theaters for awhile now and I enjoyed the previous X-Men movies as well as the cartoons, video games, comics, etc before that. I think I may try to check this movie out.
Yeah, I think this was the best prequel I've ever seen Unless you count Batman Begins But yeah, perfect cast, especially the guy that played Prof X, and Kevin Bacon really worked as the baddy, I was a bit iffy about him pre-viewing More about the story than the effects and no stupid scenes that didnt make sense like at the end of X Men 2 10/10 for me
Good review, the movie was excellent, best I've seen all year, and the best X-men movie in the series. It's like Batman Begins in that it goes beyond just being a good comic book movie, and is a good movie in its own right such that people who aren't fans of comics can still enjoy it. Magneto stole the show though, he was awesome, every bit as charismatic and interesting a portrayal as Ian McKellen's.
I really didn't like it. I'm not a comic fan, but simply a fan of movies. Kevin Bacon does a good job, as well as the dude who plays Magneto. Man was there a few really bad cheesy moments in this movie though. I personally thought it was better than the 3rd one, but not as good as the 1st. If you're a fan of the comics I'm certain you will like it though, but from a casual movie watcher's viewpoint they might not like it all that much.
I don't see why comic book fans would necessarily like it more than the other x-men movies, it was no more similar to the comics than any other.
Exactly, and comic book fans typically like comic movies the least. With some exceptions, mostly Batman and Superman movies.
KickAss was actually way better than the comic if you ask me. When I was reading the comic I even thought it could make a better movie, but their probably gonna screw it up; but they actually didn't =) Spiderman 3 was the best worst movie I've seen in theaters; I'd kinda prefer if the new Spiderman sucked like that one.
Well I purchased the DVD at Circuit City and while i wasn't blown away it certainly filled in all the gaps. I'm guessing it's one of those movies the more times you watch it the more you enjoy it :2thumbsup: H
Just had a look at what movies are due out the rest of the year, nothing that really interests me. So I'll get in early and say this is my favourite movie of 2011
