The X-Men franchise has been one of the more up and down series of films in the genre (if you can call a marketing campaign a genre). The first film received critical acclaim and did a good job of establishing the world that these mutants inhabit with out excessive use of boring exposition or laborious montages (I will be reviewing this film later this weekend). The second film is largely considered the best in the catalogue. Here a story is told without the burden of the origin set up's to slow things down. Both of these films were directed by Bryan Singer who also had a writing credit on both films as well. The 3rd film saw Singer leave and I think that because of that movie suffered greatly. At about this time the comic book surge was in full swing and there was a demand for more X-Men movies. So the studios took advantage of the most popular character "Wolverine" and made a terrible origin movie featuring him.
Now Singer is attached as a producer and writer again and there is another re-boot of the franchise. This reboot is called "First Class". Here we are treated to the entire set up of the X-Men organization. It is an origin story much like The Wolverine film, but in this case the "story" is more important than the "origin". We see the budding relationships of Professor X, Magneto, The Beast, Mystic and many other characters from the first four film.
The story is set in the 60's about the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, an event that will play a major role in the film. Here Charles and Erik are 20 somethings. Both have realized that they posses special powers and both have different opinions of how that power should be used. The difference of opinion is respected by both parties and they put aside their petty differences for the better good. That would be defeating Kevin Bacon as Shaw. A man set on world domination. And a man that has played a significant role in the shaping of Erik's psyche.
One thing I love about this movie is that it is not just nerd fotter. There are plenty of references to the past movies and I'm sure there are even more to the comic books that I didn't catch. Where this film differs from many other comic book movies is that you don't have to know all these little bonus's in order to enjoy the film. This film could stand totally on its own, and I applaud it for that. Also this film is not merely a commercial for another film or franchise. Take a look at this years Thor. Clearly the entire second act was setting up next years Avengers movie. I don't mind a reference or occasional suggestion, but dedicating an entire 40 minutes to setting up another movie makes me feel like I got ripped off. I put down my $11 to watch a Thor movie. Not an extended trailer for a different movie. To go along with that there is the introduction of a character in Thor with a bow and arrow that is apparently a character for the Avenger movie. Fine. I can deal with that. But make him part of this story then. Don't just parade him out to say "look what we have up our sleeve". It was distracting and didn't serve any purpose other than hype.
Sorry, I digress. Another thing that I loved about First Class is the cinematography. Although it was sort of uneven. I felt at time like it was very creative and different than any other thing I had seen in a comic book movie. Then at other times it was very formulaic. Speaking of camera work, one of my complaints is that I am not sure director Matthew Vaughn has the knack for action on such a large scale. The fighting scenes were a little rough around the edges. They sort of had an unfinished look. Like there were still some special effects waiting to be added.
To contrast that I loved the non-action scenes. The dialogue and smaller action set pieces felt very well thought out and captured. That is until the final 20 minutes of the movie. I had a feeling that someone looked at the script and said, "Ok. We are here now. We need to be over here in 20 minutes. Someone make me a check list of all the things we need to have happen in the last half hour of this movie".
Overall I would say that this film is in a tie for 2nd/3rd place with the first movie in the franchise. Both behind the second movie. Still, I enjoyed the movie warts and all. I give First Class ★★★1/2.
No comments:
Post a Comment