X-Men: First Class "teachers" more interesting than their students

We didn’t necessarily see a rip-off of the Star Wars prequels (or of TV’s Smallville or of Broadway’s Wicked) since X-Men comic readers have known for years that the X-Men’s leader, telepath Professor Charles Xavier and sparring partner Magneto were once allies who broke apart over their different philosophies – Xavier wants to prove mutantkind can work side-by-side with homo sapiens, Magneto wants mutants to take us over and prove home superior is the genetically-superior species.

 

It’s a great premise that starts with some great promise, especially with the back-story of the Mutant Who Will Be Magneto Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender).  Erik has a dark history and is all too aware of prejudice and ethnic cleansing – he is a Jewish boy in Poland in 1944, separated from his family at a concentration camp.  Meanwhile, his counterpart Xavier (Wanted’s James McAvoy) grows up in the lap of luxury and becomes a promising mind in academia.  By 1962, circumstances put the two young men together in a mission to stop the mutant secret organization the Hellfire Club from manipulating the U.S. and U.S.S.R. into the Cuban Missile Crisis and World War III.  It’s a great idea, and McAvoy and Fassbender are well-cast and do what they’re supposed to.

 

The inclusion of The Hellfire Club is one of the better tips of the hat to the readers of X-Men comics.  The “main” X-movies seem to be done after X-Men: The Last Stand, but there were still plenty of X-characters still to be crammed into a movie -- so director Matthew Vaughn and his team of writers just keep tipping their hats to us readers, to the point of over-saturation   January Jones as Emma Frost?  Yeah, that worked.   Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw?  Good to see the evil degree of Kevin Bacon.  A young Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) torn between the two charismatic young mutants?  Good.    But boy, by the time we get to evil mutants like Azazel and the titular and lukewarm First Class, it’s too cluttered.  And it takes away from what we should be getting – an in-depth look at what made Xavier and Magneto into the characters we saw Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan portray in the original trilogy (Kudos to the writers and casting directors for working in two great cameos though).

 

One is left leaving First Class with the same feeling upon leaving Last Stand:  Now what?  Are they going to try again?  The stories of the big guns (Wolverine, Phoenix, Professor X, Magneto) have been told, yet you are left with the impression that they want to try again with younger actors who will work cheaper than Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart.  After Last Stand, nobody clamored for an Iceman or Kitty Pryde movie, and there will be no similar demand for the Matt Damon-light Havok or the Ron Weasley-lookalike Banshee movie either. 

  

The writers should have tried to steal a look at the ending to the just-concluded Smallville, which had an incredibly satisfying final five minutes to bring things full circle.  They used iconic images to get across the point that we knew was coming – instead of hitting us over the head with someone talking in the third person.

Back to our list from this column a couple of weeks ago, how does X-Men: First Class rank among Marvel movies?    This list is fluid – opinions could change over time, but for now:
 

1. Spider-Man 2
2. X2
3. Spider-Man
4. Iron Man
5. Thor
6. X-Men
7. X-Men Origins:  Wolverine
8. Hulk  (yes, the first one)
9. X-Men:  First Class
10. Ghost Rider

 

And as for "Super Hero Summer" so far:

1. Thor
2. X-Men: First Class