The X-Men are a treasure trove of possibilities. Any superpower you wish you had, one of them has it, thus their immense popularity and enduring capability of this franchise. “X-Men: First Class” is the fifth installment, and fans of the films are very familiar with the names, histories and mutations of every one of them to the point that even Charles Darwin would lose track. So I would expect no less from Marvel than to exploit every miniscule detail as a way of reminding us how respectful they are of their fans and their millions of dollars in revenue.
“X-Men: First Class” is a carefully constructed film that takes no chances in contradicting the franchise that has carried it to this point. If there is a character, mutation, plot point, building, vehicle or costume that was not completely explained in the original three films or the Wolverine prequel, it is here. It is Marvel’s way of ensuring there will be at least a sixth installment, and God knows how many more.
The difference is that director Matthew Vaughn (“Kick-Ass”) is given mild liberties to not take these details strictly seriously. For instance, it has long been a question of why in Bryan Singer’s two films we see little of the classic costume designs the way Stan Lee drew them in the original comic book series. Surely Vaughn is forced to answer the reason behind Lee’s kitschy ‘60s style, but he’s allowed to do so by making his film a psychedelic period piece. Set pieces, dialogue and women’s clothing choices are rightfully emblematic of a comic series that began as campy fun, and split screen montages are goofy departures from a film otherwise focused on the dourness in the Holocaust and Cuban Missile Crisis.
That’s the backdrop for this origin story, which mainly charts the lives of Magneto (Michael Fassbender) and Charles Xavier (James McAvoy), but also explains a dozen others as they conveniently intersect. Magneto began his life in concentration camps (and the scene depicting this looks like an almost shot-for-shot remake of the flashback in “X-Men”), where he discovered under immense pain and suffering he could manipulate metal. He was tested on by a super mutant named Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) and then vowed his life to get revenge.
Xavier on the other hand lived parent-less in a mansion in England, and as a child he meets the shape shifter Mystique in a scene that couldn’t be cornier than if they had him reading minds as a newborn. He grows up to be a smug college professor who loves talking about mutations to pick up chicks, and she grows up to be recent Oscar nominee Jennifer Lawrence (“Winter’s Bone”).
Upon discovering each other, Xavier and Magneto team up to defeat Shaw as he plots a nuclear war in an attempt to have mutant kind rule the world. This results in action extravaganzas featuring a dream team of mutants with an infinite number of powers. And while the special effects aren’t as meaningless as they were in “Thor,” the wide array of abilities these mutants are capable of make the action scenes even less imaginative.
See, it’s a bit lame when a voiceless baddy can summon tornadoes from his hands out of thin air, namely because it’s a deus ex machine designed to be nothing more than a special effect. But when Magneto can manipulate the anchor of a giant boat to do his bidding, it’s a bit more creative because it is something drawn from the heat of the moment.
So go figure, Magneto is still the coolest character in this franchise. In the original films, he was played by the excellent Ian McKellen and stole the show. Here, Michael Fassbender, who has been so good of late in “Inglourious Basterds,” “Jane Eyre” and “Fish Tank,” does likewise, looking the least silly when he’s striking the “superhero pose.”
Everyone else is not as lucky, particularly when we’re forced to sit through mutant love scenes between Mystique and Beast as they lament on the teen hardships of just trying to be “normal.” It’s like a moment lifted from “Sixteen Candles” with un-relatable themes of mutant discrimination substituted for something real.
The upbeat, fun moments in “X-Men: First Class” are a step in the right direction for this franchise, which still has an unlimited amount of untapped characters and mutant powers to make prequels and spin-offs out of, but there’s still too much of the calculated superhero nonsense for me to care.
2 ½ stars