Movie Review: X-Men First Class

On Saturday I went with my mother, brother, youngest daughter and a friend of her's to see X-Men First Class. This was actually a pretty good movie, the effects were great, the story was compelling and the acting was far better than I was expecting.

Set in the early 1960's, the film focuses on the early relationship between Charles Xavier (Professor X) and Eric Lehnsherr (Magneto), as well as the first group of kids who could be classified as X-Men.

The villain in the film is called Sebastian Shaw, and is played by Kevin Bacon and his group, (called the Hellfire Club) includes some pretty powerful mutants as well - specifically Emma Frost, played by January Jones (Betty Draper from Mad Men).

My favourite things about the film were 1) Michael Fassbender as the young Magneto. I've liked this guy a lot in the films I've seen him in (300, Centurion, Inglorious Basterds), but he is pretty darn amazing in this film, 2) James McAvoy as the young Professor X (who I've liked in everything from Last King of Scotland and Shameless to the first Narnia movie), who also shows us a pretty compelling character throughout the film, and finally 3) I really loved the pairing of a superhero film with a historical setting (specifically the Cuban Missile Crisis in this film), as it gave the audience a double treat, working both as a historical fiction film and a superhero film.

I don't really have a lot of complaints about the film - I wish we could have seen more of the new team (both Jennifer Lawrence and Nicholas Hoult were great and I've loved to have seen more with them, and the was a lack of any end-scene after the credits (something I've grown used to in X-Men movies in the past).

In the end, a strong, solid film, and well worth your cash.