X-Men:First Class Early Reviews are Good--Really Good

Browsing the reviews on rottentomatoes.com it looks as if the new X-Men film is pretty darn good, according to critics. It's sitting at 97% currently, although that may drop once the film actually releases and more people see it. There has been much doomcrying amongst fans and the promotional campaign has been lackluster to say the least and yet I'm not surprised that the movie seems like it'll be a good one.

I've been looking forward to this film ever since I heard Matthew Vaughn was directing. He's three for three with me as far as making great films goes, so I was pretty confident he'd nail this one as well. That, and finding out that James Macavoy was playing the Professor really sold me on this. As far as the continuity goes, I'm not one of those nerds that gets all butthurt because the film makers drastically change things up.( I am a nerd though, don't get me wrong--just not one of the ones that hates for anything to ever be different from the comics I grew up reading) If the film is good, I'll accept it as being an alternate dimension story and enjoy it.

Anyhow, I'll be seeing it Thursday night at midnight and I'm hoping the film can live up to the positive reviews so far. However, I'm also thinking that it'll die at the box office which I think will be a shame (Scott Pilgrim is one of my favorite movies ever and it had almost universally glowing reviews and it died horribly at the box office). This is just me though. I understand and respect that many people are still thinking the film will be awful despite the reviews. I'm not even really one to trust reviews but so much, but I was already hoping and thinking it would be good so this is only raising my excitement level.

We'll see once it opens, I guess.

After getting burned two films running, given what tickets cost, and the overall premise, im not surprised folks would be hesitant to see the movie. If it weren't for the fact Fox will never (eeeeeeVER!) let the film rights revert back to Marvel, i would actually hope this movie dies a horrible painful death at the box office. But at this point im just hoping for a decent flick at this point.

40-1 in terms of fresh versus rotten. Average grade is 8. It's got a 77 on metacritic so I figure it's more of an 8 versus a 9. Still, I'm just happy it's suppose to be good.

Obviously I haven't seen it yet. I don't really understand the nerdrage about this movie at this point, though, based on the previews, I do have one minor criticism: the hair and costumes don't look very early '60's to me.

I still might go to see it, and I rarely go to see things in the theatre any more.

I don't really have any intentions of seeing this. In fact the sooner Fox looses the Xmen license the better as far as I'm concerned.

Comic continuity errors aside cause I know there is massive failure there, my problem stems from the continuity not even being consistent within the Xmen movies themselves. At least from what I've seen in commercials.

Kind of meh on this movie. Might see go it, but really depends on the mood I'm in. Honestly Fox is just going to run this franchise, Fantastic Four, Daredevil into the ground until Disney cuts them a check to get the licenses back.

I'm kind of excited about this movie. I have been ever since the first decent trailer came out. Something about it gave me the impression that the folks behind this one were going to put more care into the film than the previous x-movies.

Its amazing! Sooooo good. Probably better than X2. Maybe. Not sure yet. But, wow.

Just can't get "X-cited" for this film. The previews look dull and slow. And it's going to feature Havoc and Banshee? Really? If the reviews hold up it may make it to the matinee list, but for now it's a "maybe if I'm bored as heck and see it avail at a Redbox. Maybe."

No, seriously. Go see it. Its really, really good.

I've always liked the "idea" of comic books and I've probably read at least a few hundred individual books in my time. But I've never been a serious week-to-week fan of any title. I'm familar with many of the characters, but I don't really follow any of the ongoing stories.

This means I can usually accept a comic book movie as a standalone piece of entertainment without having to be worried (or annoyed) about how much or how little a movie follows the canon/continuity established in the books. For me it's only going to matter if this latest X-Men is a good movie in and of itself regardless of how it "fits in" with any existing material.

In effect I'm probably the perfect "comic book movie" fan.

I don't read the comics, but I do enjoy reading up on character histories with Marvel's Online Universe wiki thing on their website. So my one beef with this is Scott Summers' YOUNGER brother Alex (a.k.a. Havoc) is one of the first X-Men? Boo. I mean, I get that they pigeon-holed themselves when they made characters like Ice Man appear in the first trilogy, but still!

All that being said though, I will be there at midnight tonight

On Paragon Wiki's page on Physical Perfection, there's a picture of January Jones.

At least there should be.

WARNING: I bold names.

Just saw a midnight screening of "X-Men: First Class": very, very good. I would feel confident in recommending it to mature, sophisticated moviegoers, even if they are not comic book fans.

Actually, comics fans might quibble about differences in continuity from the source material. For me, eh--I wasn't bothered. I haven't followed comics in recent years; but, I was a reader during the Len Wein/Dave Cockrum and Chris Claremont/John Byrne X-era, and I have read reprints of many of the early Lee/Kirby issues. I was just happy that the movie's tone was as smart, coherent, and high-quality as it is.

The director, Matthew Vaughn, had previously been assigned to develop the third X-men movie; but, he dropped out late in the process, claiming that the production schedule wouldn't allow him enough time to make a good movie. Brett Ratner stepped in and completed the movie in time to meet the studio's summer tent-pole date, but to less than glowing reviews from critics and fans.

Ironically, Vaughn stated in a recent interview that the schedule for "First Class" was even shorter than that of X-3, but, after directing some other movies, he now felt capable of handling a summer blockbuster on such a tight schedule. Indeed, seeing "First Class" makes me wish we could have seen his sensibilities applied to X-3.

Would Vaughn's directing have made X-3 better? Or were its shortcomings due to script and story? I'd read that Ratner changed the script by combining two climactic set piece scenes into one, which he felt was an improvement--it also helped complete filming faster, which might have been a bigger concern for the studio. For me, the major problem with X-3 was the tone, which seemed sillier, more childish, more unbelievable, more frivolous, less reverential, and less realistic than the first two X-movies directed by Bryan Singer.

Singer served as a producer for "First Class", helping Vaughn create a welcome return to form for the X-franchise.

I second. I can forgive a lot of retconning if the movie is good and this movie is great. I'm almost willing to say it's better than X-men 2.

Great story between Xavier and Eric. I thought the actress who played Mystique was very good and Kevin Bacon played an excellent Bond villain (it felt a lot like a Connery Bond film at times). Funny cameo.

Unlike the 3rd movie, this movie was long enough to have both action and character development. Easily better than Thor.

As for previews, silly penguin movie, silly body swap movie, Rise of the Apes, TF 3 (which got a laugh out of the crowd), robot fighting movie. Sadly none of the other Marvel or DC films that are coming out. Not even a HP 7 Part II.

Okay I went and saw this at the late-late (or maybe early-early) show.

It was worth the price of admission.

Decent flick that stands on it's own.

Serious when it needs to be, humorous at the right times. And yeah, a few groaners in there.

Plus, the "go **** yourself" cameo was funny as hell.

And let us not forget Kevin's real mutant power. The power to instantly reduce one's Bacon Number to 1, save for himself, the only known living entity with a Bacon Number of 0.

Saw the trailer for the Jim Carey movie. *SNORE*
Saw the trailer for the zookeeper flick. *SNORE*
Saw the body-swap trailer. Meh.
Transformers 3.
The new PotA flick looks interesting.
And we got the now-standard GL trailer.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

Beyond the inevitable conflict between Magneto and Charles, i will admit that it would be nice to see an X-Men movie not focused around Wolverine.

I'm now actually hoping that we do get sequels to this that advance the timeline of the X-Men universe into other decades. Imagine witnessing the birth of Nightcrawler, and how that impacts Raven/Mystique. Or they could crib from Michael Bay (or Doctor Who) and use the space race as a springboard to introduce the Shi'ar, possibly touching on Havok and his family. (I'd kinda love to see Cary Elwes as Corsair!)

Saw it. And I liked it.

Yup the "**** off" cameo was great.

My only question now is, is X3 phased out as never happening, or will they make it so the beginning of X3 is still possible.