X-Men: First Class - User Reviews

Really solid, and definitely one the best third acts in superhero films. I always love when they integrate real world events into these movies. It’s one of the few prequels that builds interestingly on the lore of the original films without ever feeling redundant, it’s very satisfying to see the pieces fall into place. They nailed the casting of Magneto and Charles Xavier once again, even when these movies got bad you could always count on McAvoy and Fassbender elevating them with their performances. The rest of the team is fine (very nice to see Jennifer Lawrence give an actual performance in these movies), they’re clearly appealing to a teenager demographic with the casting, which leads to some odd choices with the direction and dialogue, but they keep it fun overall. The focus is always on the characters and setting up the team, rather than romance or melodrama. There’s definitely some stuff in there that I’d cut (e.g. romance between Raven and Hank), but it’s pretty well paced overall. The excellent villain and score are also major contributors to the film working as well as it does (why didn’t they keep this Magneto theme going forward?). However, looking at the film as a whole, it does feel somewhat underbudgeted. There’s obvious cheapness to the some of the effects work and it doesn’t feel like enough of Matthew Vaughn’s voice comes through visually. His signature shows up in some of the scene transitions, but his style is clearly neutered here, particularly during a lot of the so-so action sequences. Nevertheless, it’s a very easy recommendation and easily one of the best in the franchise. 7/10

**X-Men: First Class reset the board and brought new life to a franchise that had lost its way.** After X-Men: The Last Stand and Wolverine Origins, it was clear the X-Men franchise had gone off the rails, but First Class saved the day! First Class tells the origin story of Xavier, Magneto, and the X-Men with a 1960s setting and inexperienced young heroes. These raw and unrefined portrayals of Magneto and Xavier shined the characters in a fascinating new light. The story was engaging and fresh. It felt so new and unique - unlike anything ever seen before with this franchise. All these little-known characters raised the stakes since so many weren’t a part of the original movies leaving their fates unknown and futures unsecured. The 60s style added a cool new aesthetic to the franchise and seeing the beginning of the friendship between Xavier and Magneto with moments of laughter and fun gave the franchise the reboot it needed.

My favourite so far. <em>'X-Men: First Class'</em> is great fun. I felt entertained throughout with nothing bothering me whatsoever, with the score and the cast particularly standing out. I will say it starts stronger than it ends, but that's not to say it isn't all enjoyable because it certainly is. James McAvoy is very good as Charles Xavier, while Michael Fassbender is excellent as Erik Lehnsherr. Rose Byrne, Jennifer Lawrence and Kevin Bacon were three others who I liked watching too. Back to the score, it's tremendous - some parts reminded me of the outstanding theme of television's <em>'The Crown'</em>. I was feeling the decline across the preceding four releases, but thankfully this regains the series' footing and then some. Intrigued to see where it goes from here. Onwards to <em>'The Wolverine'</em>*! *watching in release order /copied directly from my Letterboxd review\

A very good movie! I'm not a massive comic book reader/fan and when I watched the first couple of the X-men movies I always wondered how it all begin and this movie do it justice! The actors where great (there no Patrick Stewart or Ian McKellen), Kevin Bacon played the baddie very well and was well suited for it and it was graphically impressive. Loved to see the development of the characters over the duration of the film. In all, I think it was a excellent movie.

This movie could be so much better, I am not saying it is a bad one but here is THE one point that made me feel extremely uncomfortable: [spoiler]This part is going to sound like a pure rant mostly because someone has to explain to me **how the hell Darwin's death is within logic?** Let me get you see the serious flaw of logic here. Darwin's supernatural power is making him to adapt to anything. He can literally adapt to everything and anything. One time his powers realized that it would be so dangerous to fight with the Hulk so they ended up teleporting him to another country. Another time he became a cosmic ball of energy and then rematerialized as a human being to you know.. not die? And another time he was shot with a gun that was made to kill anything that has a nervous system, and you know what he did, turned into a freaking sponge. He literally touched a goddess of death once and his powers turned him into a death god himself to prevent his death. And after all of these, seeing him die because of a pathetic ball of kinetic energy from Shaw? Seriously guys, am I the only person who sees the flaw here? They killed the mutant whose power is about nothing but SURVIVAL. And Shaw says "Adapt to this"?? well, he should have been able to! I will never get over his death, in my mind he turned into an energy ball and ascended to another existence so he would not have to deal with this nonsense.. okay, rant over.[/spoiler] Thank you for reading my rant.