Back to School Again
In my review of The Hangover: Part II I criticized the movie for utilizing the same opening, virtually, as the first Hangover. I said this took away from the sense of individual story and replaced it with a feeling of recycled material, using Roger Ebert as an example of someone who criticized this method of creating a sequel. I felt the film never really established it’s own story, and played out like a re-make of The Hangover set in China. In nearly every case I would say this is true for a sequel/prequel, but my most recent trip to the theatre proved me wrong.
The X-Men franchise used to be the most reputable superhero series in film. The first one helped establish the newer trend of superhero movies, and also showed that you could establish more than one hero in a movie, something which set the precedent for any upcoming “superhero team” movie. X2: X-Men United was even regarded by some, at the time of it's release, as the best superhero film ever made. This was for good reason, it was an edgy new look at superhero movies. The story had more depth than most before it, and set a new tone for comic book movies. Sadly the good vibes dies very quickly, director Bryan Singer left to direct the new Superman movie and did return for the third film X3: The Final Stand. The third movie wasn’t good, sacrificing development for killing off every major character the other films had established. The next movie X-Men Origins: Wolverine wasn’t much better, establishing too many characters to have a solid storyline.
Establishing this, it is easy to understand why I would be apprehensive for the new film in the franchise X-Men: First Class. It was a chance to start anew, but with actors like Ian McKellan, Patrick Stewart, and Hugh Jackman to replace, it would be no easy task. But the geniuses behind First Class pulled a trick that was both risky and inspired with the opening seconds of the movie by starting it the exact same way as the first X-Men movie. I believe this is one of the few times it is acceptable to refer back to early plots because it is establishing the tone for the new series. The film has now established that it will be following the juices of the first two X-Men films, instead of following the most recent duo. I believe this was a great move that set my hopes high for the rest of the film.
The film itself was a pretty good movie overall, probably the best movie I have seen so far this summer. If you’re stuck between this and Thor, X-Men will provide more substance, but Thor will provide more action; all in all First Class is probably a better film. Michael Fassbender, who plays Magneto so well it almost makes you forget Sir Ian McKellan played the role previously, carries the movie itself. His ability to capture the turmoil, and ruthlessness of Magneto is able to pace the film as it moves into complicated and tense actions that move the action forward. The believability of his character helps ground a movie that is clearly trying to establish these fantastical characters, as they would be in the real world.
The rest of the mutants are believable enough, but none of them really astonish. Jennifer Lawrence ,who plays Mystique, is stunning, and her character illustrates the central conflict of the film. Lawrence follows up her superb role in Winter’s Bone well here with another strong performance, making her one of the best young actresses in American film. The most novel aspect of the movie is getting to see Nicholas Hoult who, apart from being in last year’s A Single Man, was well-known for being the quirky kid in About a Boy. The remaining band of mutants fill their roles well, they act as ways to develop the other characters without having a ton of voice for their own. The bad guys have devastating powers the good guys aren’t really a match to, oh and Azazel is completely awesome, despite his lack of dialogue.
The two characters that truly define the flow of this movie for me, though, were Charles Xavier, played by James McAvoy, and Schmidt, played by Kevin Bacon. Charles Xavier is used to perfection in the movie. The audience can sees his progression from a young, charming man trying to forward his life (and sex life), to the sexless man who will become the proverbial Martin Luther King Jr. to Magneto’s Malcom X of mutants. McAvoy plays the character with conviction, and helps show the film’s central idea of conflict of humans and mutants, and mutants with mutants. Xavier‘s character and his abilities to spark interest in the film contrasts that of Schmidt’s, and his character’s bland role. The problem isn’t even so much that Bacon plays it poorly, it is more that Schmidt as a character is entirely too uninteresting. His villain just wants the standard thing, total world domination, without any real reason. I would assume most human beings don’t aspire for world domination, and I’m always curious why these people want to take over the world. They must have stereotypical stories in these worlds, and these bad guys must see what an insane proposition trying to take over the world is. The film also treats his character with very little explanation. For instance, his character never seems to age, despite the film covering nearly to thirty years. Schmidt also seems to gain mutant powers, despite the fact we are never told that he is actually a mutant; in fact it appears to be implied more that he is not a mutant in the beginning of the film.
All in all Bacon’s character, at no fault of his on really, holds the film back from becoming a truly great movie. With Kaiser Soze in his writing rogue gallery, you think that Bryan Singer could develop an awesome comic book villain; but alas, Schmidt is not an awesome villain. There are other issues, of course, the lack of development for many of the supporting characters seems to prevent the project from being fully realized. Overall, though, the themes of discrimination, and the differing ways people choose to deal with it, is very prevalent and powerful in the film. The conflict that occurs both physically and ideologically between Magneto and Schmidt is probably the best moment in the film, with both characters providing a backbone for the rest of the story to follow. Add in a Watchmen-esque resoluton to the Cold War that plays perfectly with the movie’s subtext, and you’ve got a good superhero movie.
For me this film boils down to being kind of like the guy on your favorite sports team; he’s capable of making some very good plays, but occasionally just makes an inexplicable “blunder of the century” level play. The movie is going very well, then out of left field it takes a completely bonehead turn that kills the momentum it builds so beautifully. Fassbender makes the film single-handedly worth going to see for his pitch-perfect performance as Magneto. Fassbender‘s performance, added with McAvoy‘s performance as Xavier upgrades this from a pretty good superhero film, to a very good superhero film, and the best I’ve see of the first quarter of summer films. I almost forgot to mention that there’s one killer cameo, I won’t spoil it, but it totally rules.
X-Men: First Class receives a 6.5/10.
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