Prologues seem to be the hot stuff of Hollywood this century. Especially in the superhero genre. So don’t you worry - we’ll see more of them no matter how little we like the concept. A prologue is like a sequel that’s not a sequel because it’s a prologue… So does that mean that we're allowed to like them since, after all, they're not sequels? (In my point of view, there are very few sequels that pass quality testing.)
Anyhooooooo… I expected a lot of things from X-Men: First Class and I’m the first one to admit that most of them were bad ones. After having seen the trailers and teasers and reviews (damn you Empire Magazine for tempting me) I felt the sudden fear of the rapid decent of the X-Men franchise into a shallow roadside grave.
Dude, was I wrong.
X-Men: First Class takes us back to the beginning of everything. The beginning of Professor X and the beginning of Magneto and everything they are both going to personify in the X-Men movies we’ve already seen (or have we?). The first images that hit us as the movie begin rolling are exactly what hit us at the beginning of the first X-Men movie from 2000.
It’s that rainy day in 1944 when Erik Lensherr and his family are led into a concentration camp where Erik meets the evil that will shape his future. Meanwhile Charles Francis Xavier grows up safe and protected. Spoiled and naïve he seeks to tell the world about mutation as evolution.
Needless to say is that I loved the movie. I really did. I was like a boy with a new action figure. There were some minor details that I could (despite my irritation) look away from (like the continuity glitch where Alex Summers aka Havok is Scott Summers aka Cyclops little brother and therefore about 30 years before his time or that Beast looks absolutely awful). A hugely unanticipated cameo made my evening and for the rest of the movie I was in mutant heaven, giggling occasionally to myself in my Wolverine t-shirt.
There was plenty of action, some really funny history re-writing and sometimes they even took some occational inspiration from some of the X-Men comics. I was awed by Kevin Bacon (Sebastian Shaw) and Caleb Landry Jones (Banshee) but the name-dropping even got me a little tired. I recognize most of the characters and names in the movie but seen from a new beginner’s eyes I’d be more than a tad bit confused. At times I got the feeling that you’re expected to know what’s going on even though you might not in fact never have read a single X-Men comic panel. Most of the characters are never introduced – which I found disappointing since I want background on my people – but instead you’re presumed to know these characters already and remember it perfectly.
Which kind of brings me back to Beast. Not only did I find it ridiculous that they chose scrawny little Nicholas Hoult to play Henry/Hank McCoy but also that once again the make-up department falls short (or three feet behind). Beast’s face looks like someone botoxed the hell out of it. On the other hand it’s still better than it was in X-Men 3 but that’s not even an accomplishment! I would have loved him to be… awesome for once.
Like the cool and intelligent, broad-shouldered computer wiz he is in the Ultimate X-Men comics:
Not the cat-like thingamajig (still crazy smart though) with awful hair we find in Astonishing X-Men:
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