X-Men:First Class Early Reviews are Good--Really Good
By
Acemace,
Posted on: 2011-05-31 22:37 in Comic and Hero-Villain Culture
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Well, there's Bishop. He hasn't been used yet. Could easily say he's not from the future in the Marvel Movie universe.|
Originally Posted by Draggynn
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. |
Some of the other problems are that they used so many of them already (mostly in bit parts).
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Just saw the flick and I really liked it, a lot more than I expected to. The first really good X-men movie since X-2 and honestly, maybe the best one so far.
***SPOILERS************
So I thought it was really well done, they put a lot of pieces in play and handled most of them fairly well. Getting to see young Xavier and Magneto, there relationship etc, was very interesting. Seeing Magneto's background explored, also very interesting, and handled well. I got the sense in this movie of Magneto being a damaged, tortured soul and that being a lot of his motivation, which worked well..
I also think they did a good job portraying the other side of the coin, showing both sides had motivation and it wasn't just Good Mutants V Bad Mutants. The Bad mutants had a point in this movie, humanity would be extinct as mutants became the dominant species, they would fight them, violently and never accept them, maybe it'd be better if they just put humanity out of it's misery so to speak. They "bad" mutants, well at least magneto, frost and some of them came off as more understandable.
All in all handled very well, Mystique, Frost and Moira the CIA agent, all very nice eye candy all did their roles very well too. I will say that I think they wanted to do a lot with Mystique and the actress did a great job playing that sort of insecure young mutant girl, trying to find her place, a boy to like her etc. Though the writing for her felt clumsy in some places with her lines, though she did well with the material, also I felt a lot of her scenes were stunted, perhaps to cut room for the other stuff, but the scenes with her and magneto seemed so short, like there should be more meat to them but they were truncated or something. Very curious to see the "deleted scenes" of this one.
All in all, surprisingly well written, directed and performed. I noticed Bryan Singer was one of the writers, which probably explains the good writing, he seemed to really understand the X-men.
Good ol Michael Ironside as the Us fleet Captain, he's had quite the career playing military types. And is Hugh Jackman contractually obligated to show up in every single X-men movie? Still found that little sequence to be humerous.
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More than likely, as my retcon would be cable goes back in time and prevents it from ever happening since his parents died and introduce the sentinels. Thats just me though. | 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. |
Wolverine could easily be tweaked to being allowed to happen still. They've muddied up the water a bit as the first Xmen movie says Cyclops was X's first student. Only changes that need happen is Professor X couldn't walk and Emma Frost can't be Silver fox's sister.
As far as cameos go, they had an appearance of Storm as a lil girl in the recruiting scene for Cerebro finding people.
I thought was pretty good over all. I think tapping into the heart of the civil rights era really gave the movie a tighter focus. While I think the team needed more time as it seemed like they only had a week or so get together and train.
Ultimately knowing the notes they were going hit you knew what had to come, just you weren't sure how they going get to them. It definitely redeems the series in continuing. Hopefully they give us a few more films between the X 1 time table.
My only major complaints were where heck was Stan Lee and our end credits scene!
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Box office update: 'X-Men: First Class' opens to an underwhelming $21 mil on Friday
-copy paste forgive the bold- Strongest positive reviews since X1 and yet the worst opening of the franchise, lower even then the hulk, speculations as to why.....?
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because even though reviews are generally positive all of them pretty much say the same thing. It's a confused vibe movie that doesn't stand out but doesn't suck either.
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Originally Posted by Acemace
Box office update: 'X-Men: First Class' opens to an underwhelming $21 mil on Friday
-copy paste forgive the bold- Strongest positive reviews since X1 and yet the worst opening of the franchise, lower even then the hulk, speculations as to why.....? . |
Saw it last night and liked it (3 comic book enthusiasts, 1 comic book FAN!) - we all enjoyed it. Laughed at the cameos - caught a lot of the in-jokes. And I really enjoyed the dynamics b/w Charles and Eric. (Spot on casting there... wow. And my favorite scene - "the point between rage and serenity" - I was tearing up, I admit it.)
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I'm guessing it has to overcome the stigma of X3. Perhaps too many people remember that atrocity to give this one a chance.
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Originally Posted by Acemace
Box office update: 'X-Men: First Class' opens to an underwhelming $21 mil on Friday
-copy paste forgive the bold- Strongest positive reviews since X1 and yet the worst opening of the franchise, lower even then the hulk, speculations as to why.....? . |
@Rylas
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A range of contributions off the top of my head:|
Originally Posted by Acemace
Box office update: 'X-Men: First Class' opens to an underwhelming $21 mil on Friday
-copy paste forgive the bold- Strongest positive reviews since X1 and yet the worst opening of the franchise, lower even then the hulk, speculations as to why.....? . |
- A heavy ad campaign during playoff basketball games, but I really didn't see it much elsewhere?
- No really recognizable actors to generate buzz?
- No 'wow' moments in any of the trailers to drive 'big budget effects on a big screen' attendees.
- A huge weekend before for Hangover 2 eating a lot of younger movie going dollars? For that matter, rash of 3D movies also eating at younger viewer disposable income?
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Originally Posted by Rylas
I'm guessing it has to overcome the stigma of X3. Perhaps too many people remember that atrocity to give this one a chance.
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Personally I didn't mind x3 but it was obviously miles off the mark from x1-x2, that said the wolverine mess on top of The Last Stand required First Class to distinctly shake that baggage but the marketing instead made references to the previous movies.
To the general public it probably came across as just a Wolverine-less prequel.
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Beats me what they're specifically missing out on. All I know is that Iron Man, Thor, and the Incredible Hulk are the top 3 Marvel movies for me so far.
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So you want Marvel to have rights back to their movies to enjoy them! See, it's all been answered |
Originally Posted by Tenzhi
Beats me what they're specifically missing out on. All I know is that Iron Man, Thor, and the Incredible Hulk are the top 3 Marvel movies for me so far.
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Originally Posted by BrandX
So you want Marvel to have rights back to their movies to enjoy them! See, it's all been answered
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Saw it. Enjoyed it. My favorite parts were the White Queen's '60's hair and the "mod" hotel room Magneto used in Geneva.
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A solid flick throughout. Good pacing, plot, characters. The film lacked anything massively crowd pleasing besides stuff you saw in the trailers (which was basically quick shots of Magneto catching missiles and picking up a sub). No spoilers given here: Bad guys really got the best moments in terms of action and the flick spread those moments out well.
I remember reading X-Men in the 80s thinking what an understated monster Shaw was and I think Kevin Bacon and the writers pulled this off. I think Bacon conveyed "Effortlessly Evil Jerk you want to punch but can't because he'd end you and would smile while doing it" perfectly (and I never would have thought to cast him at it).
P.S.: I never knew about the character Darwin. Neat powers/actor was very good which makes ... oops, spoilers.
Enjoy the flick all!
8/10 - With hopes for a full on Brotherhood/Trained X-Kitties fight next time. The next one would feel too soon for Morlocks.
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You guys are also forgetting nerd rage when it comes to poor ticket sales. Remember a bunch of people here said they would skip it because it kicked continuity in the **** and threw it right out the window and thats just a sampling of the X-Men fanbase.
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So...all the good reviews of this film have all been about how the film isn't really very good?|
Originally Posted by Durakken
because even though reviews are generally positive all of them pretty much say the same thing. It's a confused vibe movie that doesn't stand out but doesn't suck either.
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I'm not sure how that even makes sense.
I loved the film. I'd rank it around fourth as far as my favorite superhero films go. In my first post on this thread I surmised that it wouldn't be a big success, although it did better than I thought it would. Maybe I'm just cynical, but I'm thinking that it didn't do astronomically well because the film stands out too much from he other X movies. If they had just remade the first film nearly scene for scene, it probably would have done alot better. That worked for the Hangover, apparently, which has gotten almost nothing but negative reviews but has pulled in stupid amounts of money.
Well unlike Green Lantern and Thor which got a ton of TV spots and children's meal tie ins, probably because they are "new" to the general public, the advertising for this film is almost stealth. Also this is the 5th X-men movie with the previous two getting mixed reviews. I think after "fool me twice", there are a number of X-men fans willing to wait till video, reviewers be damn.
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Simple answer. When Charles and Magneto were questioning her Magneto cracked her diamond form which not only protected her body but was her defense against telepathy. So she was probably waiting patiently for that to heal. Breaking out before then would have her on the run from the very mutants that caused that injury and could take advantage of her telepathic weakness.|
Originally Posted by Chyll
A great question, that irked me mildly at the time, too. Especially after she demonstrated 'hearing' them in the soundproofed observation room.
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The only thing that realy bugged me in the movie was when Shaw killed Magnetos mother and the kid kills everyone in the room except Shaw. He doesn't even try.
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He doesn't have any real control over his powers at that point. The guards only die because they happen to be wearing metal helmets. I'm assuming that Shaw, having a basic understanding of what Eric's powers were was smart enough not wear too much in the way of metal.
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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
Simple answer. When Charles and Magneto were questioning her Magneto cracked her diamond form which not only protected her body but was her defense against telepathy. So she was probably waiting patiently for that to heal. Breaking out before then would have her on the run from the very mutants that caused that injury and could take advantage of her telepathic weakness.
The only thing that realy bugged me in the movie was when Shaw killed Magnetos mother and the kid kills everyone in the room except Shaw. He doesn't even try. |
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Can't buy that Shaw had much a clue as to what Eric could really do given the fact that for some reason he put Eric through that while just a thin pane of glass away from a room stocked full of knives and cleavers...
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Originally Posted by JeNeSaisQuoi
He doesn't have any real control over his powers at that point. The guards only die because they happen to be wearing metal helmets. I'm assuming that Shaw, having a basic understanding of what Eric's powers were was smart enough not wear too much in the way of metal.
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My only gripe with the film was the depiction of Eric's powers. I could swear there were times when he was shown manipulating non-ferrous metals, most notably the brass bed frame he uses to subdue Emma. Is it really that hard to understand how magnets work?
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Originally Posted by mousedroid
My only gripe with the film was the depiction of Eric's powers. I could swear there were times when he was shown manipulating non-ferrous metals, most notably the brass bed frame he uses to subdue Emma. Is it really that hard to understand how magnets work?
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Originally Posted by mousedroid
My only gripe with the film was the depiction of Eric's powers. I could swear there were times when he was shown manipulating non-ferrous metals, most notably the brass bed frame he uses to subdue Emma. Is it really that hard to understand how magnets work?
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Originally Posted by MentalMaden
And dental fillings.
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I think this is a lot of it.|
Originally Posted by ebon3
You guys are also forgetting nerd rage when it comes to poor ticket sales. Remember a bunch of people here said they would skip it because it kicked continuity in the **** and threw it right out the window and thats just a sampling of the X-Men fanbase.
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Though, the fans of the other superhero movies don't seem to be saying anything about comic continuity. :/
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