X-Men: First Class (2011)
Directed by Matthew Vaughn
Produced by Lauren Shuler Donner, Bryan Singer, Simon Kinberg, Gregory Goodman
Screenplay by Ashley Edward Miller, Zack Stentz, Jane Goldman, Matthew Vaughn
Story by Sheldon Turner, Bryan Singer
Box office $353.6 million
It would seem that several conflicting forces resulted in the creation of arguably the most important X-Men film since the first one. Still working with the X-Men Origins concept after the embarrassment of
X:Men: The Last Stand, an already solicited film about Magneto's origins and a less developed idea about the X-men's origins (loosely adapted from the comic series X-Men: First Class) collided in pre-production to the point that The Writers' Guild of America had to arbitrate the writing credits for the resulting film that ensued.
Conceptually, it's perfect. Put the X-Men in the actual historical context of the era in which they were first published, dealing with the actual reality of that time period far moreso than the source material ever did, give Xavier a human side and make his paralysis a sacrifice for the benefit of a world that hates mutants, present the film in such a way that it can function both as a reboot and as a prequel, leaving the studio leeway to go either way later down the road, create a proto-team that doesn't conflict with the ages of the characters seen in the original films but which still includes such early members as Beast, "Angel" (a stretch, but a nice idea), Havoc, Banshee, and a character who seems inspired by (and yet is not named after) Mimic. All that's missing is Lorna Dane and Sunfire; they got everyone else. But, best yet, the heart of this story isn't the X-Men at all; it's two different character arcs working in parallel: Charles Xavier's bond with his "sister", and Erik Lehnsherr's bond with Sebastian Shaw.
And the casting...
Even if this film were a total waste otherwise (which it isn't), James McAvoy's Charles Xavier is the most inspired casting decision ever made in this film franchise. He is so different from the comic book character, so much more real, endearing, and relatable, and yet somehow he makes total and complete sense in the role. You can't quite see
how he's going to become the character we all know so well (that's one thing X-Men Apocalypse will do right), but you thoroughly and completely believe he is that character and that he will get there. And while it's a little silly that he has to press his fingers to his temple whenever he uses his powers for the sake of giving the viewer a visual cue, it's also endearing.
Michael Fassbender is probably equally inspired as a casting decision, though the script gives him a lot less to work with. All he does in the film is seek revenge, exude rage, and somehow rather abruptly develop a sense of mutant supremacy out of absolutely nowhere (we can make our own explanations all we want -- we never see it happen in the film). There's nothing else to him. He isn't invited to have the theatrics, humor, and warmth of Ian McKellan's Magneto, a villain so rich that you loved him even while you hated him. Fassbender puts his all into the role, but he remains overshadowed by McKellan's depiction of Magneto, and I fault the script for that moreso than his acting.
Most of the rest work well enough. I have no particular love nor hatred for Jennifer Lawrence, Rose Byrne, nor most of the rest here...except for Kevin Bacon. What were they thinking? I can't look at Sebastian Shaw and not just see Kevin Bacon wearing a Magneto helmet. Worse yet, Shaw is a better actor than Bacon is, able to play a high ranking German official or a self-made American socialite with a midwestern accent, but Bacon doesn't give the two roles any commonalities -- there's no telltale mannerisms, facial inflections, or intonations that carry over from one to the other. They have no more in common with each other than with the kid from Footloose, who might as well have been Sebastian Shaw too. Really, this was the one true and glaring flaw in an otherwise brilliantly cast film.
And yet, in spite of a brilliant concept, a (mostly) brilliant cast, adequate directing, some impressive CGI for once, and some subtle but really stunning camera work, the actual script for the film is an utter mess. Nearly every scene of the film suffers from glaring plot holes and logic leaps, not the least of which includes no one noticing the X-Men flying an experimental jet directly over the stand-off between the Russian and American naval forces at the defining moment of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Really, if you watch this film more than once, it just begins to ooze stupid, which only gets missed because everything else about it -- the concept, the story, the acting, the casting -- are all so good.
And, much as this film seems to exist for the purpose of providing an origin for Xavier and Magneto, it sort of leaves out the most important parts. What was Xavier's childhood like? He mentions once that his mother never got him a hot chocolate (beyond getting a servant to do it) and once that his
step-father was paranoid about a nuclear apocalypse. How does this never get explored? So he had a detached mother and her husband who wasn't actually his father? How did that play out? What impact did it have upon him as a person? How did they react to his abilities? Where are they now? Heck, how did they react to Raven's presence, or did Charles just hide her for all the years they were growing up? Come to think of it, where's Xavier's internal conflict in this film? What is he trying to prove or overcome by founding the X-Men? What makes a guy who enjoys studying mutations and picking up women decide to nurture and take responsibility for a team of superhuman, evil-mutant-fighting adolescents? We accept it because our prior knowledge of the X-Men says it happens, but the script never justifies it.
And Erik -- what the hell was the point of Shaw torturing him? Was Shaw trying to groom him for the Brotherhood? If so, what went wrong? And while Xavier enters Erik's mind and then claims to know all that Shaw put him through, we're never shown any of that beyond a brief flashback image to Erik in a metal harness of some sort. How long did this go on, what was the purpose, and why was Erik given a serial number if he never actually entered the camps (or did he)? We just don't know. We accept that Erik has devoted his life to killing Shaw because Shaw killed his mom, but we're never given a clear reason why Shaw did this or what his intended ends were. All we needed was a brief moment where Shaw says, "I thought making you angry would make me able to control you. I've since reformed my ways in recruiting others" or some such thing. But this is more than a minor detail for me -- by fast-forwarding through the little details like what Magneto's entire childhood was like in the camps, or with Shaw, or wherever he was, we really have no idea who this character is beyond his need for revenge. Granted, neither does Erik, but at least he has a clear sense of what torments he's seeking revenge for. Was it just about Shaw killing his mom? Did Shaw treat him really well after that and Erik just couldn't get over that first meeting, or was his mother's murder just the first in a long line of tortures Shaw inflicted upon him? If so, how bad and for how long?
And, for what it's worth, if we accept the ridiculous premise that getting angry was enough to trigger Erik's powers (really, every gain any mutant ever attains with their powers in this film comes as a result of Hallmark platitudes, swellings of emotion, and absurdly irresponsible risk-taking), then why didn't Erik just fling a filing cabinet at Shaw's head right after Shaw killed his mom and be done with it? Shaw's powers couldn't have protected him from that.
But the larger importance of this film depends less on its inherent quality and more on how it finally paved a way forward for a stagnated film franchise while the Marvel Cinematic Universe was now in full swing. When this film first came out, no sense was given that it was the start of something new. First Class seemed to be another one-shot, no different than X-Men Origins: Wolverine, safely playing in the past so that Fox didn't have to make any decisions about what to do with the X-Men in the present. And yet Mystique's first moment on screen clearly signals an ambiguity to viewer -- the specific visual look and effects of Mystique (only loosely based on the comic) clearly connect it to the previous films, and yet her characterization and connections to Charles and Erik take the character in a new and more compelling direction that doesn't neatly sync with what came before. This could be a safe prequel, and it could be a bold reboot on the series five years after the original series stalled dead in the water. And, while Singer and Kinberg (I'll get to both of them in a minute) ultimately found a way to do both, my take-away at the time was that this was a curious one-shot take on the properties that would likely be dismissed as non-continuity by whatever X-Men reboot ultimately followed. How interesting that, even though this film was far from a clear commercial success, it became the basis of all that followed for the next two films.
The other importance I attribute to this film is the teaming of Bryan Singer and Simon Kinberg. Singer was the artistic vision behind the original franchise as well as this reboot, while Kinberg sort of went on to become an overseer of the franchise as a whole, writing and/or producing each X-film starting with Last Stand and extending to Deadpool and Logan. Last Stand may have proven that Kinberg needed Singer's vision paired with his oversight in order to make the franchise work. Singer notably scrapped much of the first script for this film, which came about under Kinberg.
Continuity issues:
- In the first X-men film, Xavier states that he first met Magneto when he was 17. X-Men First Class has them first meet after Xavier completes graduate school, presumably in his mid twenties.
- Clearly, the previous X-Men films in no way suggested Mystique had a deep and complex backstory with Xavier and Magneto.
- A new Moira MacTaggart who is thirty years younger than the one seen in Last Stand and also American helps to suggest that X-Men: The Last Stand is now out of continuity. Singer's just sticking with the Singer films.
- Similarly, the first scene of X-Men: The Last Stand, in which it's implied Xavier and Magneto recruit Jean Grey as their first student twenty years after the events of this film, isn't directly contracted by this origin story, but a mismatch is felt.
- Logan's appearance in a bar in 1962 as his usual grouchy self suggests that X-Men: Origins Wolverine is also out of continuity, as (according to that film) he should have still been with Victor at this point, relatively happy/not jaded, and likely fighting in Vietnam. Again, Singer appears to just be sticking with the Singer films.
- Though never named in the film, the blonde haired girl who grows a diamond exterior in X-Men: Origins Wolverine was likely Emma Frost. Thus, First Class also suggests X-Men Origins: Wolverine is out of continuity because the Emma Frost here is nearly ten years older twenty years earlier.
- William Stryker (X2: X-Men United, and later Days of Future Past and Apocalypse)'s father works for the CIA and is the chief opponent to trusting mutants in the film.
- While I enjoyed both casting choices for Beast, there's no way that Nicholas Hoult is playing the same character that Kelsey Grammar did in Last Stand.
- At the end, Charles and Moira emphasize the importance of the X-Men retaining anonymity. Yet the CIA knows his name, knows he's a telepath who can read minds and willingly wipes them clean, and can look in the white pages to find his parents' mansion anytime they want.
- Whatever happened to most of the characters in this film? Banshee, Angel, Emma Frost, Azazel, that Tornado dude? In Apocalypse, some reference is made to the original X-Men team all being "gone" now, but Darwin is the only one we ever saw die (and really? The black guy had to die first??).
- While Xavier is using Cerebro, we catch a brief glimpse of Storm at maybe age 10. Considering that she's still a teen in X-Men Apocalypse (which takes place twenty years later) she shouldn't have been born yet.
Adaptation issues
I've never read First Class, though I understand the film departs from it pretty heavily. I guess my only adaptation issue is with Azazel. I mean, you put a villain in the film, twenty years before X2, who clearly has the exact same powers as the most memorable character from X2. You've got to assume some hint about parentage is going to get dropped somewhere, but it never happens. Why go there then?
And, while I absolutely hate what they did with "Angel" (I outright laughed at those flapping butterfly wings during the chase scene with Banshee), I respect the idea behind the adaptation. While Warren Worthington III had already been used in the now generally ignored X-Men: Last Stand, that didn't mean there couldn't be a different "Angel" on the original X-Men team (and Warren never actually called himself that anyway). But if they were looking to get another female on the team, and maybe someone non-white, they could have just cast Zoë Kravitz to play Polaris instead.
I was very disappointed with Emma Frost, arguably one of the X-Men's most formidable opponents, relegated to a love-sick non-entity servicing Sebastian Shaw's every need. Maybe if she'd been given space to grow/evolve in a later film, but Magneto's Brotherhood shown here (to the best of my recollection) doesn't surface again in the later films.
But, finally, I really really liked how they decided to handle Beast's transformation. It was faithful to the source material in the ways that truly mattered while compressing time for the sake of the film and adding in the fascinating idea of the injection being extracted from Mystique's blood. It not only makes sense, it explains the blue color as well.
There has never been an X-Men film that I've been 100% satisfied with, but I look upon this installment more favorably than any of the ones that came before it.
Grade: A-
