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MelvinTheJerk
Jun 4, 2001

I'm still here.
Sometimes when something is so flawless and amazing it's hard to go into great detail about it. I'll get this out of the way. X-Men: First Class is the best Marvel movie ever and probably the best overall comic book movie. It rivals The Dark Knight and may very well be better than it.

I'm not sure what more to say beyond that. Everyone did an outstanding job, I was on the edge of my seat the entire time, and I was in awe when it ended. I'm a huge comic book nerd and I've heard the origins of the X-Men countless times and this movie truly did it justice. Great job.

5/5

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scuz
Aug 29, 2003

You can't be angry ALL the time!




Fun Shoe
XM:FC has a HUGE case of Dumb Audience. Anything that could have been inferred by someone who doesn't know much about the X-Men origins story (me!) could have figured out half of the poo poo they spelled out in the movie, like how the X-Men title came about, which is inconsistent with how Charles explained its origins in the first X-Men movie. The biggest one was probably when Charles received a gunshot wound in the small of his back, and started saying "I can't feel my legs." It was completely unnecessary.

There are a few plot inconsistencies that I noticed or just plain old don't buy, like when Charles and Eric meeting Wolverine, a very strong personality, and just forgetting about him when X-Men 1 takes place? What the gently caress. And Charles's first wheel chair being identical to the chair he uses in X-Men 1-3?

And I realize that it's a comic book movie about mutants, but there are just certain things that I could not believe. Like when Eric lifts the nuclear sub (that looks like a diesel sub) out of the water without any apparent strain being put on the airplane he was riding in. I didn't realize that the power to create magnetic fields also granted the power of defying the laws of physics, but like I said, I don't know much about how the powers work.

These are sort of nitpicks, but it was enough for me to do an "ughh" in the theater. And out of all of the First Class mutants, the black one dies first. I thought Hollywood was over that poo poo but I guess not.

3/5.

jmzero
Jul 24, 2007

I thought the movie was very well casted - particularly the leads - and quite well acted. Good pacing and dialog, and fun, low-on-cliche action sequences (in particular, thank heaven that shakey cam seems to be going out of favor). It lacked a lot of the groan inducing dialog that partially hampered some of the other X-Men movies, while keeping the best elements of those films (interesting relationships, the joy of these people discovering their power, etc..).

The varied audience I watched it with clearly enjoyed the film. It makes for a good date movie - nothing particularly objectionable, very accessible story, a nice little bromance, a bit of melodrama. It also works as a straight action movie, and has rewards for at least the casual comic book fan (as I am). Naturally anyone with more than a passing knowledge of the story (even someone who'd just watched the other films, like my wife) is going to see quickly how some of the plot threads are going to unwind. That's the curse of being a prequel, or even of being based on established fiction. But if you choose to, you can enjoy these parts.

That said, one certainly shouldn't expect too much. I think the natural comparison is the first two X-Men movies. This film is very much in the same vein, but is - at least in my opinion - a little better.

quote:

...power of defying the laws of physics...

I like a movie that is consistent on its physical laws, and I like superhero movies where powers are at least reasonably consistent - so I don't object to this kind of complaint on a "why are you crying about physics in a comic book movie" basis.

Whole thing spoilered, for laziness (sorry): Rather, I'd say that you've got it backwards. The norm is usually that Magneto's powers don't comply to any sort of "equal and opposite force" sort of thing - his powers seem normally to work as kind of a "remote control" more than a "manipulating forces in relation to himself" sort of way. So the odd part, to me, is when his powers do seem to "pull him along" or "push him down when he lifts something up" or whatever. I mean, clearly we have to play very loose on physics to make any of this work. That's a bullet we have to bite to have these movies... but I'd prefer if powers worked consistently. To me, that makes the whole thing more satisfying. To me, it'd be simpler if they just chose to make him independent of any forces he's exerting. Otherwise, it's kind of silly that he can make himself fly by lifting himself by his belt buckles.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

HandsomeBen
Nov 23, 2006

There is no greater calling than to serve your fellow men. There is no greater contribution than to help the weak. There is no greater satisfaction than to have done it well
I went to see this on a whim when some friends invited me. My expectations weren't very high because well, the other movies were pretty terrible. X-Men: First Class is the best X-Men movie and quite possibly the best comic book movie I've seen. I was never bored at all and I was actually sad when the movie ended. I wanted it to keep going.

I'm hoping they just completely redo all of those lovely movies because this was such an amazing start to a new series.

Go see this movie right now.

5/5 x100

Asshole Businessman
Aug 8, 2007
I heart Donald Trump.
Some of the dialogue was awkward. The worst scene in the movie was when Kevin Bacon and friends were trying to recruit the young mutants and slavery was brought up. Literally the next shot was Darwin's (black dude's) face. Awful.

The best Marvel movie? Naw. This movie ain't got poo poo on Spiderman 2, sorry. But it was pretty good. It could have been better if they spent more time developing Xavier's and Magneto's relationship instead of going into this silly cuban missile crisis scenario. But Kevin Bacon was a pretty sweet villian and I could watch Nightcrawler's dad owning faces all day. Seriously, that guy is awesome.

Magneto steals the show though. I wouldn't have minded if the whole movie was about him.

4/5

gunblade
Sep 1, 2008

-Just lucky, I guess
Saw this movie last night with a friend. I was skeptical, he was looking forward to it because he loves the franchise. In the end we both agreed that the movie sucked.

I think the movie had too many subplots and was too long. The classical story of Prof. X's and Magneto's differing views is good, but here it was kind of drowned out by too much silly other stuff.
There were too many characters who I didn't care for (I'm looking at you, Ron Weasley and Jock Dude). The only character whose subplot I remotely cared for was Mystique's.. The action scenes were unexciting, I guess this was partly because I thought a lot of the cgi and special effects looked really cheap.

2/5

the_psychologist
Jul 28, 2004
~~Bush is a Dick.....Cheney~~
I don't know much about X-Men, but even I felt my hand being held through much of this movie. "I can't feel my legs!" is just one example.

My crowd got pretty antsy during the middle of the movie when all the dumb, awkward mutants fool around and nothing much happens. Wow, a chick who can fly on insect wings and kind of shoot fireballs? Why choose such a lame character for the roster? And the fugly screamer kid who can also fly? Just so arbitrary.

Also have to love how they repeatedly mention the need for secrecy, yet still do completely fantastical things in plain sight of normies.

The final battle is kind of cool effects-wise, but seems to have lots of conveniences to keep things relatively tidy in the chaos of war. The missile tug-o-war is pretty weak. They tried to heighten the tension too far and just defused it altogether.

Very pretty women in this movie, though I still think January Jones has chicken legs.

$5 invested and only partially satisfied. This is better than Spiderman 3, anyway.

3/5

Spacedad
Sep 11, 2001

We go play orbital catch around the curvature of the earth, son.
It was enjoyable and fairly intelligently handled overall but it doesn't have the feeling of depth to it that I would have wanted - it's rather didactic to the point that characters announce how you're supposed to feel about a scene in their dialogue.  Still, it did have good emotion in parts - there are points where it gets a bit of that. Sadly this is put off by the fact that it moved a bit too fast in parts. Still, it was a good film. Totally worth seeing and overall stronger than the other x-men movies.

My favorite parts were those that made allusions to Russian psychic warfare vs US MK-Ultra stuff - there it felt like we were literally seeing some of the kind of pulp science psychic warfare stuff that whack-jobs in the kremlin and goat-staring guys in the US only dreamed about. That stuff was actually my favorite. I also enjoyed seeing heroes come into their own a bit.

Unfortunately I felt that not enough time was spent to let the characters breathe enough as I would have liked. Their personal stories beyond a central few don't really have too much to them aside from setting up the final spectacle battles of the film. The movie kind of rushes along at a frentic pace towards this too. It doesn't really let the audience do any guessing for themselves - making it feel definitely like a kids film wearing adult make-up. Not that that's not entertaining, just that Dark Knight's Joker, for example, definitely had me guessing, and questioning whether he was really the bad guy totally sometimes...leaving me feeling conflicted and violated as I wrestled with these ideas. This film doesn't allow for such ambiguities or personal involvement.

The climax of the film is also fairly predictable and feels way too cartoonish. LETS BLOW UP THE MUTANTS HURR...oh hey somehow russia is deciding with us at the same time to blow them up. Wait we forgot one of them just LIFTED A loving SUB OUT OF THE WATER WITH HIS MAGNETIC POWERS. Oh and somehow in spite of the fact that we know there's thousands of mutants everywhere we're going to kill the one that can help us find them because we actually think killing this handfull of them will get rid of our 'mutant problem'...great plan. There's lots of points in the film which the filmmakers apparently went to the school of filmmaking where the philosophy is to use music and frentic onscreen action to hide the lack of tension the way that a laugh track covers up the fact that a comedy TV scene isn't funny. There's only a few scenes with some tension in the movie...most of it is just spectacle. Pretty spectacle but it's disappointing to see modern mainstream filmmakers don't understand something as elemental as tension.

Also one thing I can't really forgive is that the black guy is the one who 'tragically dies.' Come on. Seriously? THAT of all tropes? In this day and age?

I think this is one of the more competently handled superhero movies. But I think it's drastically overstating things to say it is 'the best superhero movie since The Dark Knight.' Definitely worth seeing. Very entertaining. You will enjoy it. It's just not a film whose plot I feel will hold up quite so well on repeated viewings.

3/5

Spacedad fucked around with this message at 07:10 on Jun 10, 2011

iSuck
Jul 22, 2005

by T. Mascis
I really liked this one. First Class contrasts to the first three films which inserted subtle elements for adult audiences but remained action oriented and fairly lighthearted. This film takes a different approach with some really great darker elements, character development, and dialogue. Also, it's refreshing to see a comic movie which didn't fill the screen constantly with emotionally disconnected and shallow action scenes and CGI seizuring at me. Which I'm assuming is where the Dark Knight comparison of quality is coming from.

Unfortunately, this one clashes with some of the other film's established history. It was great to see the Cold War setting. It really reminded me of a Watchmen ripoff at some points, though. I can see how the fast moving plot may have been confusing to some viewers if one isn't familiar with the history of the missile crisis.

A few minor eye rolling moments made it in (token black guy dying, the wtf idea to kill the mutants at the end, etc...) but the dialogue and fast pacing made it palatable so I'll give it a pass on this issue. With the genre of comic movies it seems difficult to transfer print to film and stay true to the franchise without some degree of cliche being forced, especially with Marvel.


4.5/5

Ka0
Sep 16, 2002

:siren: :siren: :siren:
AS A PROUD GAMERGATER THE ONLY THING I HATE MORE THAN WOMEN ARE GAYS AND TRANS PEOPLE
:siren: :siren: :siren:
I went in prepared to hate this movie, but left absolutely entertained. It's an action flick which manages to blend in real-life elements with the x-men fantasy setting. James McAvoy as Xavier recalls some of his Dune tv series experience and Fassbender is superb as a struggling yet determined Magneto.

Although this movie is a character study on the relationship between Magneto and Xavier, we do get some of the original segregation/acceptance motiff from Mystique and Beast.

The score for this thing was incredible and I cannot wait for its release.

My only gripe is how they turned Moira McTaggert into a generic CIA operative. And that is just a nitpick. I truly have no problems with this film starting a new trilogy set as long as it does not degenerate into a Last Stand level of disappointment.


5/5 just go see this. Easily one of the best movies this year so far, the music alone is worth the ticket.

DS at Night
Jun 1, 2004

Went to see it feeling vaguely apprehensive after The Last Stand and Wolverine Origins had turned out to be, well, just not worth watching at all. But after the Nolan Batman movies and even the second Hulk movie for example I'm absolutely willing to give a movie that mentions the word "reboot" a chance. And this one did not disappoint.

Starting on familiar ground with a recreation of the first scene in the first X-Men movie, I was sucked in. The story manages to make Magneto easy to sympathize with and gives Charles Xavier more of a personality. The movie kept me thoroughly entertained throughout its duration and it's also got quite a few good supporting roles (as well as a few less memorable ones). The Sixties communist scare era makes for a great setting. What complaints I have are relatively minor, such as Emma Frost turning into diamond almost constantly for seemingly no other reason than "ooh shiny" or the scope of time being too short on Charles and Erik actually being friends. Due to what was probably an overload of little plotlines and side characters we've also missed out on some great gross out gags with Angel Salvadore, but oh well, still a minor thing.

As a horrible comic book nerd I put some effort into not nitpicking and just enjoying the movie. It worked for the most part but I genuinely hadn't noticed the apparently tired trope of Darwin AKA The Black Man dying first until my friend pointed it out to me. I had assumed that (spoiler for non comic book readers?) it was a reference to his first appearance in the comic where he ends up being basically the sole survivor of his old team. In fact I was half expecting him to come back at any time in the movie.

I can't give it any less than a 5/5 score. It's not the defining cinematic masterpiece of our generation or even the best movie I've ever seen but it's everything a superhero movie should be, it's very entertaining, has likeable characters being played by good actors and I'll happily go see it again soon.

Undersold
Oct 12, 2002

Join me for a glass of champagna
I give it a 5/5. It was an excellent sort of reboot to the series and takes a step in the right direction by casting excellent actors and treating the material seriously rather than the cartoonish plots and stories of the original films.

The film manages to be thought provoking, engrossing as well as entertaining. That is a lot more than I can say for the majority of movies currently showing in the theater. I thoroughly enjoyed it.


Check out my review of this and others here if you're at all interested -

http://filmicbrevity.wordpress.com/2011/07/06/x-men-first-class-a-first-class-comic-book-adaptation/

Baron Bifford
May 24, 2006
Probation
Can't post for 3 years!
On an aside, I think some people throw a 5/5 rating around too casually. 5/5 should be reserved for really special movies, ones right up there with the Godfather and Citizen Kane. If a movie is simply "awesome" it should get a 4/5.

5 - Masterpiece, right up there with Godfather and Citizen Kane
4 - Awesome, very good
3 - Just OK
2 - Lame
1 - Horrible, right down there with Ed Wood

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

GreenBuckanneer
Sep 15, 2007

2/5

This was pretty lame I thought.

Cons:
- no name characters
- characters other than magneto and xavier got little to no background
- too much exposition and FEELINGS than actual action.
- too little on the actual building up of xmen, which was shortened to like 10 minutes of footage showing how fast they were growing

Pros:
- the last ten minutes or so were exciting, there should have been more of that
- special effects seemed alright

Basically towards the end it was fun, and did all the right things it should have been doing for the whole goddamn movie.

Rabid Koala
Aug 18, 2003


My wife and I made it about 42 minutes into the film before we called it quits. The CGI is horrendous, several of the performances, notably that of January Jones, are B-grade, and nothing of consequence really happens. The editing drags the narrative down. The story never settles down long enough to focus on a single set of characters, which is a shame because McAvoy and Lawrence turn in the most convincing performances.

2/5

Revener
Aug 25, 2007

by angerbeet
Not at all a bad movie, and certainly a drat sight better than any X-Men movie released to date, First Class still leaves a lot to be desired.

The story is well paced, but lags toward the end. No characters aside from Magneto, Xavier and Mystique are fleshed out to any real extent and do not even get me started on the loving see-saw of awful writing that is pixie. There are many parts in the film where we're left asking questions as to the motivation of the characters and writers, and many instances of very lazy writing, notably toward the end. In fact, the end was easily the worst part of the film and is very reminiscent of X3.

Overall, it's a good film made meh by lazy writing and half-delivered performances. Magento's accent switches from German to British to Irish.

3/5

Turada
Jun 17, 2006

On a mission from God
The movie itself was very enjoyable, pretty much what I expected from a summer action movie. I'm not hugely into the X-Men mythos so there's no resonance with my childhood or anything like I suppose a lot of people get. I don't really have anything to say from a technical standpoint: it looked good but it wasn't outstanding, everything worked well but there was nothing really new, so yeah, it was fine. There's nothing that gives a more visceral thrill than watching Nazis die.

It did make me realise though, that I've been doing X-Men wrong all these years. Magneto's not the villain, Charles Xavier and his mutants are. The metaphors are so clear for any sort of discrimination, and we're led to believe that Magneto is basically a Nazi wanting rid of the lesser species while Charles only wants to live alongside them as equals. But this is a flawed analogy; it's like trying to have non-whites as equals in the Jim Crow South, or a female leader in Bahrain. They can never be so until society changes, and Charles never makes any effort to effect this change. He goes on endlessly about the need for understanding and accommodation he might as well be Professor Chamberlain. Those that are discriminated against don't need to change, or do anything. It's the society that refuses to accept people for who they are that has work to do.

3/5

Other reviews: http://ithasbeesinit.blogspot.com/2011/07/x-men-first-class-final-destination.html

Bonk
Aug 4, 2002

Douche Baggins
I've seen enough Marvel and DC movies to realize that "superhero" is by and large a bland and oversaturated genre, and I haven't even seen that many of them. Still, I've always had a soft spot for X-Men since it was the primary comic franchise I read growing up. The first X-Men was mediocre, X-Men 2 was pretty awesome, and X-Men 3 was pretty lame. Wolverine wasn't terrible, just bland and cliched. X-Men: First Class is somewhere in the middle. I liked the dynamic between the two lead males, I enjoyed the badassness of the villain's power, and I thought Magneto vs. Shaw was a pretty compelling story. So why they didn't choose to focus entirely on that is beyond me.

The film definitely has some audience handholding going on, particularly in Xavier's vision where - on a giant wall map displaying the USA in blue and USSR in red which both sides have in their war rooms - Kevin Bacon slaps a giant missile decal on Cuba and then turns around with a menacing face. Cut to a cartoonish montage of how the Cuban Missile Crisis might play out. I get that the movie's demographic is mostly teenagers who won't really know the Cold War outside of a History class, but at least pretend some of us know what it was. That would be okay as an isolated thing, but unfortunately most of the movie is like this. It equally wedges in cliche 1960s references just so you'll absolutely know this takes place in the 1960s (people say "groovy" and go-go dancers are everywhere!), and packs in fanservicey cameos and characters, unfortunately not nearly enough of which are ever developed. It also has blatantly obvious dialogue, like "My mutant nickname is [this]! And your mutant nickname is [that]!"

It's decent entertainment, but it felt overblown and packed full of too much... well, stuff. The setting jumps around frantically, the plot shifts between characters erratically, and in the middle of it all we're supposed to connect it to real life historical events. It's about Magneto, no it's about Xavier and Magneto, no it's about Xavier and Mystique, no it's about this character and that character and this group vs. that group, no it's about...! Honestly, they squandered a huge opportunity to make "X-Men Origins: Magneto", and instead they made "X-Men Origins: Everything We Can Pack In Whether It Fits Or Not". It's fun and all, but turn your brain off. It's summer popcorn and little else.

Solid 3/5. X-Men 2 is still far and away the best of the franchise.

Bonk fucked around with this message at 05:04 on Sep 14, 2011

Glass of Milk
Dec 22, 2004
to forgive is divine
Saw this on a long flight.

If this wasn't intended as some summer blockbuster or even an X-men movie, it could have been a very good movie. Consider the main protagonists: one is an idealist striving to fit into a world that fears/hates him, while the other has faced the worst of humanity and is unwilling to accept that the future can be different from the past.

But this is a summer popcorn movie, and a comic book movie as well, so we get a myriad of extra characters who add nothing but an array of CGI-enhanced effects and catchphrases ("Can you fly it?" "I hope so- I designed it!") and winking at the audience (bald jokes, Wolverine) with the exception of Mystique, perhaps, though with the plot flying by there's not a lot of time to explore her motivations for falling in with Magneto at the end.

And motivations really are what the movie is lacking in: We get the appropriate background for why Magneto is the way he is. Why does Xavier care about people or helping the US or any of it? Bacon says he hates the Nazis, but he's as much of an evil caricature as any Nazi villain- why does he want to destroy the world. And trying to ascribe any motive to his mutant cohorts is useless as well: they just are the Bad Guys (though they join up with Magneto without worrying about him murdering their former boss at the end).

It's pretty much standard CGI-summer-fare, and that's too bad, because the dynamics could have allowed for some really good social commentary and character development.

2.5/5

Jolan
Feb 5, 2007
This movie was bloody great. Most films that have come out in the past decade have had lulls in the flow that managed to bore me so acutely, I got pulled out of the movie entirely. X-Men: First Class, however, managed to keep me engaged until the first ending credit rolled past.

It's a pretty awesome movie, with unexpectedly great performances by McAvoy, Lawrence and Fassbender (of course I'm not including Bacon is that list; there's nothing unexpected about him being awesome). They manage to carry the entire movie, while the other characters are mostly instrumental to show how X-Men (could have) started off. I'm glad Wolverine isn't a big part of this movie; although he's a cool, badass character, he's always hogging the spotlight, and without him others got a chance to shine.

Yes, there is a bit too much hand-holding, a few horrible clichés (token black guy) and bloody stereotypical Russians (seriously, Hollywood, Russians don't always shout when they're speaking), but because the movie flows so well you've barely noticed them before you're sucked back in. And the way McAvoy portrays a young Xavier is great: a smart, rich telepath who's cocky, a bit bossy and even a little arrogant because he's never been on the losing side of life, but by the end of the movie you can see how he's starting to turn in the Xavier that Patrick Stewart portrayed.

Absolutely bloody loved it. If they can keep it this fresh, I'd love to see a sequel. Solid 4.5/5.

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Xinlum
Apr 12, 2009

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Dark Knight

I thought the movie completely fell apart about halfway through when they start introducing the other mutants. They just completely ruined the chemistry in the film between the leads. I would have much rather watched a movie about Magneto's revenge or at least Xavier and Magneto tearing poo poo up together like badasses.

2/5

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