A-minus for the new X-Men
The X-Men series started well in 2000 with two films directed by Bryan Singer, but suffered an ugly mutation with Brett Ratner’s brainless X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) and risked extinction with the boring prequel X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009).
Matthew Vaughn’s attempt to revive the franchise is the fifth and best of the lot. It bears the same relationship to the four previous films that J.J. Abrams’ 2009 Star Trek did to its predecessors.
It shows how the X-Men came into being as a group rather than as individual mutants, how they were first wooed by the CIA and then incurred the hatred of the authorities.
It casts young actors in familiar roles. The only old-stager to survive from the previous films is Hugh Jackman, and his appearance as Wolverine is no more than a cameo.
One big asset is James McAvoy. He is excellent as the young Professor Charles Xavier (formerly played by Patrick Stewart), the most civilised, reasonable and urbane of the Mutants.
McAvoy plays him with charm and verve, and his lightness of touch rescues Charles from the priggishness that made Stewart’s performance less sympathetic than it was meant to be.
First Class takes Charles from his privileged U.S. childhood to university days in Oxford, and then on to his first confrontation — during the Cuban missile crisis — with his initial friend and then long-term enemy Magneto, formerly played by Ian McKellen and here interpreted with commendable forcefulness and athleticism by Michael Fassbender, who makes a good case for himself as the next James Bond.
Matthew Vaughn’s attempt to revive the franchise is the fifth and best of the lot. It bears the same relationship to the four previous films that J.J. Abrams’ 2009 Star Trek did to its predecessors.
It shows how the X-Men came into being as a group rather than as individual mutants, how they were first wooed by the CIA and then incurred the hatred of the authorities.
It casts young actors in familiar roles. The only old-stager to survive from the previous films is Hugh Jackman, and his appearance as Wolverine is no more than a cameo.
One big asset is James McAvoy. He is excellent as the young Professor Charles Xavier (formerly played by Patrick Stewart), the most civilised, reasonable and urbane of the Mutants.
McAvoy plays him with charm and verve, and his lightness of touch rescues Charles from the priggishness that made Stewart’s performance less sympathetic than it was meant to be.
First Class takes Charles from his privileged U.S. childhood to university days in Oxford, and then on to his first confrontation — during the Cuban missile crisis — with his initial friend and then long-term enemy Magneto, formerly played by Ian McKellen and here interpreted with commendable forcefulness and athleticism by Michael Fassbender, who makes a good case for himself as the next James Bond.
