Movielogr

Rating: 8 stars

All movies seen on 06/05/2011

View on: IMDb | TMDb

X-Men: First Class (2011)

Directed by Matthew Vaughn

Action

Most recently watched by schofizzy, zombiefreak, CaptainBigTime, ashe5k, noahphex, Allison, bmargherito, jakeneff, Javitron, seanCduregger

Overview

Before Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr took the names Professor X and Magneto, they were two young men discovering their powers for the first time. Before they were arch-enemies, they were closest of friends, working together with other mutants (some familiar, some new), to stop the greatest threat the world has ever known.

Rated PG-13 | Length 132 minutes

Actors

James McAvoy | Michael Fassbender | Kevin Bacon | Rose Byrne | Jennifer Lawrence | Nicholas Hoult | Lucas Till | January Jones | Jason Flemyng | Caleb Landry Jones | Zoë Kravitz | Edi Gathegi | Álex González | Oliver Platt | Matt Craven | Laurence Belcher | Bill Milner | Morgan Lily | Beth Goddard | Éva Magyar | Corey Johnson | Demetri Goritsas | Glenn Morshower | Don Creech | James Remar | Ludger Pistor | Wilfried Hochholdinger | Greg Kolpakchi | Andrei Zayats | Rade Serbedzija | Ray Wise | Michael Medeiros | Olek Krupa | Yuri Naumkin | Gene Farber | David Agranov | Katrine De Candole | James Faulkner | Annabelle Wallis | Juan Herrera | Greg Savage | Jarid Faubel | Gregory Cox | Josh Cohen | David Crow | Kieran Patrick Campbell | Sasha Pieterse | Brendan Fehr | Michael Ironside | Jason Beghe | Venya Manzyuk | Tony Curran | Randall Batinkoff | Peter Stark | Leonard Redlich | Carlos Peres | Sean Brown | Neil Fingleton | Marios | Georg Nikoloff | Arthur Darbinyan | Hugh Jackman | Rebecca Romijn | David Joseph Martinez | Johnny Otto | Josh Ramsay

Viewing History (seen 2 times)

Viewing Notes

There were lots of plot holes and in general, I felt it tried to do too much, but it was still a damn good movie.

The New X-Men was my first teenage comic book love. I bought Issue #111 off a comic book rack in a convenience store while at summer camp and was immediately hooked on the combo of Claremont and Byrne.

First Class reminded me a lot of those stories, even though it’s set in the ‘60s. I quite enjoyed the pseudo-retro style, especially on Sebastian Shaw. Bacon really nailed this character! It was great to see him in such a cool role.

Most of the casting was a surprise to me since I try to avoid reviews and pre-release news about movies. I was kinda shocked to see Jennifer Lawrence in the role of Mystique. I thought she acquitted herself nicely. It’s great to see her getting work after her excellent turn in Winter’s Bone. I’m guessing The Hunger Games will put her over the top.

Aside from Bacon, the one who steals the show here is Michael Fassbender as Magneto. He brings a lot of humanity and conflict to his character.

Jason Flemyng as Azazel was practically unrecognizable under all the makeup. I actually had to look him up on IMDB to reconnect the name to the face.

Going back to the comics of my youth, it was great to see some of the characters from that era, since that’s when I first got introduced to the likes of Moira McTaggart, Banshee, Havok and The Hellfire Club (which, if I recall correctly, is based on a real sex club that operated in NYC back in the ‘70s and/or ‘80s).

Here’s hoping we get more films in the series that do as good a job or better in exploring this universe.

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