Peace was never an option...

Plot:

X-Men First Class takes place around the 60's, set in the middle of Cold War and where racism was common. As both Jew and Holocaust survivor, Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender) held a nasty grudge, and tirelessly chasing Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon), a former Nazi officer who exploited his mutant power. On the other side, Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) just made a breakthrough in mutant study, and FBI made an approach to him in order to stop mutant-alike threats. Charles found Erik accidentally, and by mutual consent, together they formed a band of mutant people to team up against Shaw and his gang. The cold war culmination toward WW III is in the horizon, and only they can put an end to it.

Review:

X-Men was considered as gambling project back in early 2000, where comic and superhero movies were not money making business. 1st movie was received quife well, while 2nd one was, I must say, one of the best superhero/comic book adaptation. X2 has propelled the notion that superheroes are good for business (after $214 million US box-office). Unfortunately, the legacy was ruined by the disastrous X-Men: The Last Stand and the failure of Wolverine, first of many X-Men: Origins series (and the last one, indeed).

Then, X-Men: First Class came up as the solution on how to fix the whole mutant series. As in Star Trek, Batman, James Bond, and other remake projects, continuation was written off, a fresh new start began. Hopefully, this can clean up the tarnished image and open up new story line.

After 132 minutes (pretty long for this genre), I can only say, WOW!

Amazed, First Class is truly incredible, a top notch execution from Matthew Vaughn, who also did a pretty good job transferring Kick-Ass into the big screen. With Bryan Singer, now as producer, and Sheldon Turner (Up in The Air) developing the story, backed up with scripts from Ashley Miller, Zack Stentz (both did Thor), Jane Goldman (Kick-Ass) and Vaughn himself, X-Men: First Class has a great reboot story line, and magnificent start of something fresh.

As a summer flick, it rocks, and it delivers all the good ingredients: great action, humor, effects and a strong connection between heroes, villains and those developing in between. On the production side, the retro design is suave and making this a period piece gives it a cool and unique flavor, reminds me of Mad Men. Another good plot is that the way it seamlessly integrated with actual Cuban Missile Crisis back in the 60's (using Kennedy's memorable speech was awesome).

But, the true gems is the performance of both Fassbender and McAvoy. Each played his own part brilliantly, Fassbender who always looks menacing and ambitious, while Charles is the naive, light hearted, and the calmer persona (not to mention flirty also). Most of the movie reveals their relationship which started as friends, partners, and mutual coalition, until they explored each other vision, thus opens up the rift and in the end starts the eternal war of soon-to-be Professor X and Magneto. Xavier may not have shown exaggerating power on-screen, but he's cool enough every time he's touching the forehead, while Magneto really shows what he's capable of with all the metals. Not as exquisite as the previous movies, but one particular scene involving a knife was stuck in my mind.

No Wolverine (not yet), Cyclops, Jean Grey on the good side, but we get Raven a.k.a Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), Angel (Zoe Kravitz), Beast (Nicholas Hoult), Banshee (Caleb Landry Jones), Darwin (Armando Munoz), and Havok (Lucas Till). Each mutant possesses raw mutant ability, until Xavier trains them to control it. While on the dark side, we have Emma Frost (January Jones), Azazel (Jason Flemyng) and Riptide (Alex Gonzales). A decent supporting cast, where Lawrence, Hoult, and Jones who gets more screen time and lines. Thanks to the latest CGI technology and the proper and smart use of it, the mutant power is much more better exploited in this flick. Raven's changing shapes and Azazel teleportation is as good as the previous one, while Havok and Basnhee provides something new and cooler.

X-Men: First Class is not just a dazzling flick, but the serious tone and moral message is still relevant. To compile it into a whole package of superhero/comicbook translation shows that the team behind this movie are showing intention that they are not only making big budget crap. An effective reboot, strong script, backed up with powerful performances of the cast, the whole production was first class.

My Review: 9/10