Basically X-Men: First Class is a recent comic book story arc that goes into the early years of the mutant superhero group, the X-Men. The movie serves more as a prequel to the other X-Men movies but honestly it doesn't really stick to the film canon at all. It's also extremely different from the comics. The characters aren't even the same as those seen in the books. Despite it's inaccuracies to both the comics and previous movies, First Class is a fantastic film, arguably the best in the series. For a movie that needed to be made so FOX could keep the license, this one was a big surprise.
This one starts similarly to the first X-Men movie, depicting Magneto's childhood in the holocaust. From there it goes on to chronicle the lives of Erik Lehnsherr and Charles Xavier (with Mystique) as they reveal to the world what mutants can do. The movie takes place around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis so the Cold War is built in to the story in some pretty interesting ways. In order to avoid war with both mutants and the Russians, Xavier & Erik have to put a team of mutants together. This team is the films version of the X-Men: First Class. The comic crew consists of the likes of Cyclops, Iceman, Archangel, Beast, and Jean Grey. The only member that we see in the movie is Beast but the rest of the crew has already been exhausted in the movies so it makes sense that they decided to go with a new crew. I'm not going to tell you much about the crew because there are some changes from what they gather to who ends up fighting alongside them, just know that Professor X & Magneto are at the frontline of their team. During their training, relationships are built and characters are explored. It all serves to set up, not only the climax of the movie, but they entire world of the X-Men.
Now, I find it necessary to tell you that X-Men: First Class is barely a part of the other 4 X-Men films. Continuity is really screwed up. I don't feel like going into everything about it because I'd feel like I'm complaining. What I want to say is that you shouldn't let this take away from your experience with this film. There was a lot of nonsense built into the franchise just to make those movies work by themselves and it would be difficult for this movie to have to live up to everything those movies put into place. It's easier to toss what they didn't like aside and it also made for a better movie. The same goes for the fact that they didn't stick with the original First Class cast. Using those characters would have just piled on more expectations for relation to the other movies and that was obviously something they didn't want to deal with.
Once you're watching this as more of a reboot than a prequel (even though it's supposed to be a prequel) you'll probably enjoy it more. Fassbender & McAvoy are great in their roles as young Magneto & Xavier. They didn't let themselves be tied to the personalities of the characters we know. Instead, they gave us a glimpse at what more wreckless, youthful versions of them may have been. Personally, I was a huge fan of Fassbender in this. The rest of the team is cast well with relatively unknown actors. Winter's Bone star, Jennifer Lawrence, is the biggest star of them all in the role of Mystique. Kevin Bacon and January Jones play the main villains in the film. Bacon plays a former big name Nazi named Sebastian Shaw & Jones is his partner in crime, Emma Frost. I thought Bacon did a fine job as Shaw but Jones wasn't convincing as Frost. Turbo referenced her figure not quite being that of the White Queen but I thought her acting wasn't quite sexy enough. She was very 60s housewife, which is great for Mad Men but not for this role. It didn't take away from the movie as a whole though so I'll let it slide.
From start to finish, First Class did everything right. The scenes of action were well done. I got a sense of joy from the flight scenes that I can't say I've gotten in any other superhero movies. First Class is as funny as any other comic film out there. However, as with any movie dealing with the Holocaust or nuclear war, there are some powerful emotions present in this film. The plight of the X-Men has always been that they must protect a world that hates them. This is handled in a more personal fashion than in any other X-Men movie. The universal issue of blending in to society is heavily touched on as well, making this movie extremely relatable to any viewer.
I don't have much else to say. Obviously, I suggest this movie. It's in the top tier of superhero films, up there with Spider-Man 2 and the like. I'm rating X-Men: First Class 24 Mutants. If you think that's not that many, tell that to them.
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