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Summer is the season for adrenaline junkies—for those of us who love bad guys who blow stuff up and good guys who always manage to prevail in the end. And if you’re one of those adrenaline junkies with a soft spot for superheroes…well, this is your summer. From Thor to Green Lantern, the summer is loaded with comic book fanboy fare. But, thanks to well-rounded directors like Kenneth Branagh and Matthew Vaughn, they’re movies that you can enjoy even if you’ve never set foot in a comic store.
In X-Men: First Class—the latest installment in the summer-long superhero extravaganza—Kick-Ass director Vaughn takes a step back from the first three films in the franchise to explore the origins of Professor X and his X-Men.
In 1944, while a young Charles Xavier (Laurence Belcher) was honing his telekinetic powers in a posh mansion, Erik Lehnsherr (Bill Milner) was being exploited by the Nazis who killed his parents. Nearly two decades later, Charles (James McAvoy) is using his Oxford education to study human mutations—and Erik (Michael Fassbender) is out for revenge.
When CIA Agent Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne) seeks Professor Xavier’s expertise in handling a strange new threat, he and Erik find themselves battling a common enemy: Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon), a powerful mutant who’s determined to provoke nuclear war. Charles and Eric have very different reasons for taking on Shaw—but they work together to recruit a team of young mutants for the coming battle.
X-Men: First Class is the kind of superhero movie that fanboys can enjoy with their non-fanboy friends. It has plenty of action and flashy effects for the summer blockbuster-loving adrenaline junkies—but, thanks to the captivating characters and their personal conflicts, there’s more to it than just some fight scenes and explosions.
Of course, it doesn’t hurt if you already know a little bit about the characters and where their stories are headed. It will certainly help you pick up on a handful of inside jokes—and it will make some of the drama all the more meaningful. But, even without extensive X-Men knowledge, you’ll still find yourself caught up in the challenges that various characters face—whether it’s Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) and Hank (Nicholas Hoult) and their concerns with their unusual appearance or the other young recruits’ attempts to harness and control their powers.
Still, the young characters are easily overshadowed by the constant chess game between Erik and Xavier. One is reckless and impulsive, fueled by his rage; the other is smooth and serene and positively Zen. The characters (and the gifted actors who portray them) play off each other remarkably well—and their strong but unstable friendship is far more fascinating than their battle against Bacon’s over-the-top villain, Shaw.
Unfortunately, Vaughn’s personal flair rarely shines through the standard superhero fare. This isn’t exactly Kick-Ass 2. But the solid characters and a credible young cast still make X-Men: First Class an obvious improvement over Brett Ratner’s 2006 installment, X-Men: The Last Stand—and a worthwhile summer superhero adventure.
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