There are superhero movies that take themselves too seriously (Spider-Man 3) and those that don’t take themselves seriously enough (Batman and Robin). But sometimes, they get it just right, like X-Men: First Class. This is not to say there aren’t a few quibbles, but they are only minor ones. With an excellent cast and a very smart script, the movie is the first big surprise (genre-wise) of the summer. It’s not exactly a prequel, not exactly a reboot, it’s really a (you heard it here first) “preboot:” it both diverges from and provides some continuity for what went before it.
The filmmakers made some very smart choices with this movie. First, they resisted the “more the merrier” impulse and kept the number of villains to single digits. Second, they remembered the rule from Character Development 101: the bad guy doesn’t do bad things simply because he’s the villain, he does bad things because he believes he’s doing the right thing. Third, they made the movie a period piece.
Most of the film is set in the early 1960s, about the time the X-Men first appeared in Marvel Comics. The look of the movie has the kind of immersive detail usually reserved for costume dramas. With all the knowledge of what is possible now, with wall-covering LCD screens and palm-sized computers, it’s a kick to see good ol’ analog tech, all tape reels and blinking lights. The movie also pays homage to other period films: the Pentagon’s War Room is virtually a dead ringer for the black-and-white version in Dr. Strangelove and any classic James Bond adversary would feel right at home in the villain’s lair. In fact, the movie is very much like those pre-Daniel Craig Bond films: somebody wants to take over the world, somebody has to stop them.
The filmmakers keep the action going by breaking everything into short scenes and constantly cutting between storylines, which is sometimes a shame because you can miss things they went to great pains to include (like an early scene framed so that you see Erik/Magneto’s reflection in a bar of gold on the desk of an unscrupulous banker). They also manage to give the characters valid motivations for their actions: we see Erik’s experiences in wartime Germany shaping his worldview and Charles/Professor X’s life of privilege in Westchester shaping his. And while there is not a lot of true character development, there is a lot of character definition. You can see how Charles and Erik became friends—and enemies.
This is not to say that First Class aces everything: there are changes in continuity and character that would send hardcore fanboys screaming, philosophical issues are sometimes reduced to bullet points; the messages of tolerance and acceptance (“Mutant—and proud!”) are sometimes a little too obvious—and one of the only two black characters with speaking parts doesn’t make it to the credits. Still, X-Men: First Class earns high marks.
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