X-Men: First Class

placeholder – here’s a preview of my full review:

September 9, 2011

X-Men: First Class

After the Wolverine movie I was kind of hoping that there would be a series of X-Men: Origins movies. And, yes, this is an origin story, but it is also a re-boot or a prequel. Instead of telling the story of one of the X-Men it tells the story of the formation of the original group. Of course the comics nerd in me hastens to point out that although Beast was an original X-men the others were Angel (not this one in this movie but Warren Worthington) Ice Man, Jean Gray and Cyclops. This is the X-Men movie-verse so it’s okay if they want to do their own version. In fact I’m overjoyed that they did their own version because this is the most literate, the most intelligent, and the most intensely enjoyable of the X-Men films.

It starts out with the same powerful scene that starts out the first X-Men movie with Erik Lensherr being forcibly separated by the Nazis from his parents. Instead of leaping to the present day from there, however. Instead it goes into more detail of what exactly makes Erik the man he becomes. A Nazi scientist named Sebastian Shaw has witnessed Erik’s extraordinary manipulation of the metal gate, and he’s determined to unlock Erik’s true power. To this end he attempts to elicit another supernatural manipulation by his young pupil, which he is ultimately able to unleash by killing Erik’s mother right in front of his eyes.

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