X-Men First Class

Yesterday I went to see X-Men First Class and it was amazing! I spent the day before re-watching all the films and forgot how good they are, even though they're not exactly cinematic masterpieces! The film is a prequel to the X-Men series and tells the story of how they formed and it was actually one of the best films I've seen in a while.

Despite a terrible script in places and some dodgy accents, I genuinely enjoyed the storyline and at a healthy 132 minutes there were no places were I felt it dragged. There was a good balance between action and actually interesting parts of the story, something which is often missed in big budget action films such as this. The characters themselves were well played and had depth too something else which is often absent from this genre of film. James McAvoy as a young Charles Xavier and Micheal Fassbender as Erik Lehnscherr (Magneto) appeared together for the first time since the both starred in Band of Brothers at the start of their careers and they worked very well together. Both gave what were, in my opinion, very good performances and their on screen chemistry was also very believable. The appearance of some familiar faces of the mutant variety were also mostly good. I especially liked Nicholas Hoult's Beast and equally enjoyed the familiar faces of Emma Frost and Raven/Mystique and a thirty second cameo from one Hugh Jackman (Logan/Wolverine) was really funny!

Also the scenes at Charles' mansion where the mutants were learning to control their powers were very funny. With Havok, Banshee and Beast as the ringleaders of the comedy throughout the film this section showed it at its peak.

There were places however, which I found occasionally almost excruciatingly cringey such as the whole setting of the Cold War and clips of JFK addressing the world which didn't quite look right. Also there were some terrible moments of dialogue such as jokes about Professor X losing his hair and the mutants always being ... X-Men. But then these films have never been known for their outstanding writing with gems like "What happens to a toad when it gets struck by lightning? ... The same thing that happens to everything else!" so lines like these can be, in my opinion, forgiven and forgotten.

Generally though it was very enjoyable and possibly the best superhero movie I have seen in a while. It certainly seems a lot more polished and just much better overall than the Ryan Reynolds' new film The Green Lantern. However, I can't wait for the new Captain America film The First Avenger which looks really good!