So, I just returned from the cinema, having watched X-men: First Class, the new prequel to the X-men movie-series. When I first heard about this project, I was very, VERY skeptic. Twice before this I had been majorly dissapointed, with the mediocre and sometimes terrible X-men 3 and the facepalmingly stupid and annoyingly terrible X-men Origins: Wolverine. (Both whom I really wanted to like, but just couldn't.) But when it was announced that Kick-Ass-director Matthew Vaughn would direct, my mood turned too careful optimism. X-men are probably my favourite superhero-franchise, so I really wanted this movie to be good, especially after the previous 2 failures.
And you know what? It is good.
It's really good actually, and you should run to your nearest cinema as fast as you can to see it. But if you want to hear something more detailed, then please read on. I'll warn you when spoilers are coming. 
So, first of, the story. As previously mentioned, this movie is a prequel, set in 1962 just before the Cuban Missile Crisis. While mutants have started to pop up, they have yet to be discovered by humanity. We meet a young Charles Xavier, who has just become a Professor and spends his days trying out his telepatic abilities and picking up hot universitystudents, and a young Erik Lehnsherr, who spends his days traveling the world and hunting down nazis who escaped into hiding after WW2. These two meet when Charles is requested by CIA-agent Moira MacTaggert to assist her in the hunt for Sebastian Shaw, the leader of The Hellfire Club and a mutant with not so nice plans for humanity. Shaw also happens to be the next man on Erik's list, and soon they team up to stop Shaw. And to do this they also recruit a teams worth of young mutants, whom they traine to fight Shaw's own mutant henchmen.
That's the story in a nutshell, but there is much more to it than that. There are major themes in this movie (which are all par for the course in anything good X-men related), like fear of the unkown or those who are different , fear of being/looking different, accepting who you are, and how conflicting ideologies can tear people apart. This all comes out through the relationship between Charles and Erik, whom become best friends, but whos views on human and mutant relations are simply too different. This all works thanks to the brilliant acting of both James McAvoy as Charles and especially Michael Fassbender as Erik. Charles is an idealist and a good man, but due to his priviliged upbringing has never really expereinced the hardships that Erik has. Erik on the other hand, knows just all to well how cruel and ugly humanity can be, and cannot belive that humaity could ever treat mutants as anything other than monsters. But he is by no means a villian in this movie. In fact, he proves time and time again that he can be truly heroic, and we see how he and Charles become good friends.
Other actors that really need to be mentioned are Jennifer Lawrence as Raven/Mystique, Nicholas Hoult as Hank McCoy/Beast and Kevin Bacon as Shaw. Lawrence does a wonderful Mystique, and really shows both her concerns with how different she is, and how she comes to terms with this and her pride as a mutant. (Pluss, she looks amazing covered in blue paint.
) Her relationship with Charles is also great, and really shows that while he is a good person, he really dosen't know how it feels to be and look different as different as she does. Her relationship with Beast is also good, as he has the same problems as her, but has an even harder time accepting it. And Bacon as Shaw is simply a wonderful badguy. He is carismatic and cool, but also evil as all hell. He's the kind of badguy you love to hate, or hate to love.The rest of the cast also do a good job, with special mention to Jason Flemyng as Azazel, who is simply cool as hell. Too bad he dosen't do much.
And that brings me to the negative part of my review. My big problem with this movie is that several characters feel underused. While characters like Havoc, Banshee and the previously mentioned Azazel are all cool and interesting, they really don't get much time to do much or develop. This is a reccuring problem in the X-men movies, seeing how each movie needs at least a teams worth of characters, plus badguys. And while January Jones certainly looks the part as Emma Frost/The White Queen, and while we sometimes see glimpses of the feme fatal and ice queen from the comics, she too feels underused and flatt. It's just that in the later years she's become a much more interesting and developed character in the comics and I wish they had used those aspects of her more, instead of going the generic, hot henchwoman-route.
One of Shaws henchmen dosen't get any lines AT ALL. There really isn't enough time to develop them all all that much. This results in a scene and a character that feel completely pointless imo.
SPOILERS!!!
One of the recruits that Charles and Erik pic up is Darwin, who has the mutant power to develop whatever he needs to survive a given situation. He gets his head under water, he grows gills. You try to hit him with a steel pipe, he gets a hard shell to protect him. In one scene, Shaw and his henchmen kick down the door to the X-men's current HQ, kills a bunch of CIA agents, and give the mutant kids the chance to join him. Angel, a girl with fly-wings and acidic spitt, chooses to join him. (which I guess should make us upset, but she has only had like 2 scenes, so this betrayl dosen't really shock us, as we don't know much about her. Again, not much time for development.) This results in Darwin also pretending to join. But he grabs Angel and shields her while Havok throws an energyblast at Shaw & co. But Shaws power to absorb energy stops the attack, he grabs Darwin and forces the energy down his throat. This kills him and Shaw & co leave. First. Why is Darwin so concerend with Angel leaving? They've only had 2 scenes together. Second. Why dosen't Darwins power save him? It isn't really established what he can and can't survive, so this is again a result of little time to develop secondary characters. And Third. They don't do anything with it. Darwin isn't mentioned again at all. Not that I expect the rest of the characters to cry buckets over a guy they've know for 2-3 scenes (that would be just as silly), but they still saw a person die in front of them. This should lead to some reaction, fear, doubts about joining the X-men, or anything. Especially with Havoc, as it's been established earlier in the movie that he has trouble controling his power and fears hurting people around him, and that it's partially his fault that Darwin dies. But if this gives him any sort of reaction, we certainly don't see much of it. This makes both Darwin and his death both feel pointless. It's like they thought "Hey, I don't know what to do about this Darwin-character. He and his powers could end up becomming a walking Deus Ex Machina and ruin the thrillby making everything too easy.""We could kill him to make some drama?""Yeah, good idea!" Pluss, he and Angel are the only non-white recruts. She turnes evil and he dies. I know the movie is set in the 60's, but it was made in the 2000's people. I thought we had gotten past stuff like that. It just annoys me that an otherwise great film makes such a basic mistake.
Also, I feel that storyelements became rushed towards the end. We all know that Magneto turnes evil and that Mystique joines him, but when it happens at the end of the movie, I feel that they should have waited with it for a sequel. If we are to belive the previous movies, Charles and Erik where friends for years before Erik turned and became Magneto. This also contradicts flashbacks in X3, where they where together (and Charles was still walking) when they found Jean Grey. (Though if this movie retcones X3 that would be fine by me.
) It just feels rushed, same with Mystique. While she does seem conflicted in the end and leaves because Charles says it's ok, it feels really rushed after all the carefull buildup in the rest of the movie. And her relationship with Beast is never really resolved, and neither is his personal conflict about hes new mutation. He's somewhat grumpy, but then seems fine. Hopefully, these problems will be adressed in the sequel (if it is made). After all, no-one (other than Magneto vs humanity) seem like mortal enemies yet at the end, so maybe these conflicts will return and get more developed.END SPOILERS!!!
But back to the good.
The camerawork is great, with the appropriate shots taken in every scene, and the cinematography in general is solid. The effects look excelent, and are a step up from the sometimes embarrasingly bad CG in X3 and Wolverine. I also love the old-school makeup on Mystique, Azazel and Beast (in the later scenes). The music is also good and sets the mood, but there weren't any tracks that I really remember.So, all in all. Great story, great acting, lots of laughs (watch out for some great in-jokes and easter eggs) and action. And it brings my favorite super-team back to the big screen in all it's glory. Not perfect by any means, with some annoying flaws, but still a damn good time at the cinema. 8+/10!
(Btw, sorry for this wall of text. I just had to get it all out.
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