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

As I said before, I didn't mind Angel turning, I'm surprised more of them didn't flip considering the circumstances.

1) They weren't trained for fighting or working as a team.
2) Shaw and company just took out an entire CIA facility without mussing their hair.
3) Shaw gives you the join me or I may consider you my enemy speech.
4) Angel didn't like being looked at as a zoo animal by some of the suits. I admit, that's somewhat weak but she struck me as someone who would follow whoever offered her a better life.

In 1944, Charles was 12 and Raven 10 (or at least she looked 10), according to the credits. In 1961 this would put Charles at 29 while Raven may appear only 18 or 19 (half aging according to Beast). Not sure how much of a life she had outside of Charles's influence before she met Erik. He's definitely the "bad boy" when compared to Charles.

Charles a pessimist? Not unless it's opposite day. He thought that they could be accepted if they showed the world how much good they could do. Totally missing the point that individuals with those powers would terrify those in charge.

I think half the people who didn't like Raven/Mystique was annoyed that she wasn't naked all the time. I like the story element where she has to be encouraged to embrace her natural form after years of hiding it from everyone but Charles and even then, clothed but blue.

I also strongly feel that this felt like an early Bond film but with superheroes. A yacht hiding/converting into a sub so the big bad escapes. One man (for a portion of the movie) trying to track and take down the big bad on his own. Hot women in skimpy underwear strutting about. Plot to start WWIII between the US and USSR by controlling players on both sides by a third side. All Shaw was missing was a white cat, he already had unique henchmen. I thought it was a pretty good mashup.

I get the feeling that Tenzhi and I grew to know the x-men through the older comic books. The 80s and even before. While the people who are arguing that the movies are good and that the characters are well developed came to know the x-men during the 90s or just from the movies.

Sit back kids and let grandpa tell ya a little story about the x-men before you get off his lawn. The x-men are kids. They have always been kids. Sure some of them have been in their twenties but the majority of the time the majority of the group has been in its teens.

And they like having super powers. Think of it. If you gained the power of being a super acrobat. Somebody who was so agile and dextrous that you could make the best parkour runners look like they were wearing lead vests and concrete boots. You could make jugglers who had spent a lifetime practicing look like rank beginners. Would you get all mopey and depressed because your feet looked like hands?

And if your powers didn't make you look different it would be even more exciting. You are a teen with the ability to create ice out of thin air. Or move objects with your mind. Or phase through walls. Or fly. Or turn to metal. Are you really going to spend all your time being serious or are you going to have fun with your powers? It's like watching high school athletes complain about how having extra strength and speed make them such outcasts. Then spend their time complaining to each other how they wish they could just be normal.

THAT is the problem with the x movies. It has been a strong theme through the comics throughout their entire lifetime. These are kids and they enjoy having powers and they have fun with those powers. When things get serious then they have to buckle down and be serious as well but they don't spend their entire time being serious. In fact with the exception of Cyclops they spend as little time as possible being serious.

That hasn't been present in even one of the movies with the sole exception of First Class and there it lasted for maybe a minute. And after it happened they got chastised and started feeling sorry for themselves again. The movies have the same tone as the comics in the 90s (which was when I stopped reading them) where everything became dead serious doom and gloom.

Ironically the worst of the movies (x3) actually came closest to getting the tone of the comics right. It wasn't well written or acted but the whole confrontation between Juggernaut and Kitty, the fun that Madrox had with his powers, Wolverine going stone cold killer while charging into the mutant camp, all those things echoed strongly the make up of the comics through the years they were most popular.

Marvel has traditionally had comics where the characters reveled in the power they had and had fun with it even though they took their responsibilities dead seriously. The first Spiderman movie had this attitude. In fact that's why I actually consider Daredevil (the directors cut, not the theatrical release) and the Fantastic Four movies to be superior "Comic Book" movies to the x series. Not better written. Not better acted. but more true to the genre.

Truth be told I would have to say the super hero movie I enjoyed most was probably Sky High just because it really did capture the feeling of having fun with the abilities they had.

And that is why I feel the way I do about the x movies. I don't think they are bad superhero movies. I just think they are bad x-men movies. Kind of like Starship Troopers. It's a wonderfully fun movie, but it isn't Heinlein's Starship Troopers.

I liked the movie.. but as old-school Marvel fan there are some stuff I just couldn't understand it made it in here...

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- Charles Xavier was always bald. He never had any hair. It is part of his mutation
- Emma Frost was always planned to be mid 30's. The past 5 years the comics had her lose about a year every year. A 26 year old would never have shown the maturity of the White Queen of the Hellfire Club or the Head Mistress in Generation X or the Hellions. Marvel made her younger to be more attractive to younger fans. The movie version here is more accurate to the original way the character was created.
- Never could accept Emma her Diamond shape... mutation wise it is rubbish to have a physical mutation like that added to a mind powered mutant. It is like making a blaster with invulnerability.
- I can accept changes in continuity for the movies... but the movies should hold their own continuity very well. And Emma was a young girl in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. :S

Just a few of my personal pet-peeves. Aside of that I liked the movie a lot!

Now that I've seen the movie...

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Originally Posted by Durakken Xavier was to pessimistic

What do you think pessimistic means?

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Magneto was too brain dead

Can you explain why you think he was brain dead?

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Beast was too focused on appearance... they're his feet people... noone looks at his feet and why would you want to look like a dork? I mean if you can give yourself a normal foot you can certainly change the rest of your features a lot more simply so why go that way?

A teenager worried about the way he looks!? SHOCK!

[/quote]Angel doesn't have enough exposition to justify her going evil[/quote]

In the [maybe] 5 minutes of screen time we know Angel, is there enough to say she wouldn't "go evil?" There's really no build up for her character either way. If you can list enough reasons why you think she was leaning towards a human-mutant peaceful existence, then maybe that complaint can be taken seriously.

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Banshee is lame. Why would you use him? And it never really pays off.

Finding a sub, flying in to rescue Havok... yeah, he totally door sat that mission.

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Havoc is stupid to use... he's Scott's YOUNGER brother... why not use scott? Any reason you can use for Scott works better than it does for Havoc.

It is odd they would break away from the comic book continuity in this way. But then again, Havok's always been a second choice to Cyclops, so I don't think many people care about his character being 100% spot on. Besides, Scott's way too young in the other movies to be a teenager in the 60's. Maybe continuity isn't something you care about, but believe it or not, it is a factor in judging a story's quality.

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Darwin... the one character that seems interesting of the lame cast of characters

His character screamed Red Shirt to me. I'd agree it's somewhat of a concern that the only black mutant to remain on the good team is killed before the real action starts. Then again, maybe it's because nerd fans would rage all over the internet if you changed an iconic character to black. *shrug*

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Mystique... She wasn't really a character imo, she was a sounding board and a plot device...and the people that sounded off her all did so insultingly and out of character... She's a freakin woman that can look any way she wants. They could developed her so much better by having her react to people being d-bags about her appearance not being what they want.

Considering the first series she hardly spoke much, and didn't have much to her other than being Magneto's whipped companion, this character had MORE to offer. She also embodied the stronger differences between Magneto and Charles.

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The only character they got right and the only scenes that were better than mediocre to crap were the Emma Frost scenes. Every other scene was just mediocre or bad...

The most dry acting in the whole movie is who you give the biggest props to? I don't remember the White Queen being completely emotionless. Lacking in compassion, yes. Not void of feeling anything. There was absolutely no difference between JJ's performance here and in Mad Men. Sure, they wrote her doing things Emma would do, but unless she's acting like Emma, it's pretty much a fail.

Overall, I thought the movie did a spectacular job. It certainly raised the bar from the last series. I'd see another if they made one.

Cracked already has the list (partial) of characters from the next installment

Yeah, but the source of the angst isn't really the issue. Yes, the Xmen are an angsty group, but because they had to cram so many stories/characters into the blender for those movies, they almost completely excised the fun and joy beats from the comics, leaving behind a half-hearted representation of the Xmen...something they were already doing even if they did manage to capture what Mandu's talking about.

I tried not to read any of the spoilers but am glad that most people liked the movie.


I hope to see it this Sat.

I very much enjoyed this movie. Haven't read the previous 10 pages of threads. I thought that if you don't mind some radical retcon (and Marvel is all about that) that it was a very enjoyable movie. Minuses for some plot holes, plusses for some totally groovy 60s costumes. Solid A from me, but take off up to two grades to B+ for aggressive retcon.

Just a couple thoughts from skimming the thread, haven't read it completely though. I did enjoy the movie thoroughly, but then my expectation were pretty low going in.

I'm not sure I agree with the comment that the x-men have always been kids. Sure X-men 1.0 were kids (angel, marvel girl, beast, cyclops, iceman) but I always had the impression that X-men 2.0 were older. (Banshee, Wolverine, and Storm in particular). And I think it's a little disingenuous to claim the angst in the X-men is new. Storm was moody for a really long time in the comics as she dealt with being a pacifist who had harmed people and trying to resolve that. There was a lot of moody Jean Grey while she dealt with the implications of what she had done as Dark Phoenix. Granted my knowledge is really only post 1975 and it may have been more care free before that....but post 1975 is a ways back to be claiming that the mood isn't authentic.

As to the race issue, I think X-men has long suffered from having almost all of its characters being for the most part white and middle class which I think they tried to remedy with team 2.0 to limited affect (Canadian, Japanese, Kenyan, Russian, German, Apache, (probably missing one or two)) since the Japanese and Apache mutants didn't last long as I recall.

Unfortunately, I don't think they could change the race of any the mutants without fans getting upset, and the cast of minority characters to draw upon is rather limited especially seeing as Storm wasn't an option. I'm not so certain that this is a X-Men issue, so much as it is an issue of comics in general.