Weekly Movie Review: X-Men First Class

During the school year I started to write movie reviews for the school paper, naturally I thought that it would be an interesting subject to bring to the blog as well. After all, this blog is about all things that I do concerning art, not just photos. (Not anymore at least.)

I have always enjoyed movies, my minor is film studies, I am particularly interested in the theoretical considerations of narrative voice in movies, and I have begun to explore video documentation (in an augmentation to my photographic work) - in short, I am a bit of a movie nerd. Another subject that I consider myself a bit nerdy about is comics. I fell into the world of webcomics freshman year in college, and last summer got into superhero comics, primarily the Green Lantern. I do read some Marvel titles (and some Dark Horse and Image as well) but X-Men has never been a favorite. I saw the other movies when they came out, but I don't really remember them well; however, I believe that X-Men First Class is a super hero movie that I will be adding to my personal collection.

***There are no spoiler alerts in the following review, there really is nothing in the movie to spoil as everything happens rather straightforwardly.***

This movie can really be seen as an origin story for Prof. X and Magneto. Now at the start I should point out that the storyline that the movie presents is not how Prof. X and Magneto met in the original comics; yet, I think that story in First Class is more compelling than what I have read in the way of synopsis on the original. (There is not that much change, but in the movie as a child Magneto, or Erik, is captured by the Nazis - he is Jewish - and experimented on; in the comics he escapes the camps and goes on to father twins.) There are other storyline facts that I am not exactly sure about their truth to the comic-storyline, however I believe that they make interesting associations (such as a romantic flare between Beast and Mystic, Mystic growing up with Charles, etc.) that make for a more developed "first class." It was also interesting to see Emma Frost and Azazel on screen, as well as Beast's transformation into the blue hairball that we all know him as.

Yet, what I found best about the film was the issues that it grappled with, not just on a character development level, but the moral issue of revenge and justice, forgiveness, acceptance, and how to act in light of [super]physical superiority. These elements are some not commonly found in super hero movies and, in my opinion, not commonly found in Marvel storylines. In these regards, X-Men First Class is a refreshing change from what we have come to expect from super hero movies (which seems to be just special effects and explosions).

That is not to say that First Class didn't have these elements - the final fight scene was actually rather epic in that it was very superpowers focused, but it did not make them more powerful than they should be.

There was also some very well done character development (primarily for Magneto, however to a lesser extent Prof. X and Mystic) for a superhero movie. After seeing this movie I feel like Magneto may be the most tragic heroic villain I have ever heard a story from, and I actually feel like I can understand his decision to split from Prof. X and start the Brotherhood of Mutants.

I hope that the upcoming Green Lantern movie can deliver in the ways that X-Men First Class did, because as of right now First Class is the best superhero movie I have seen since the last Batman film.

-joshua