Release Date – 6/3/2011
Charles Xavier is working his way through school, speaking about mutant abilities, and hoping to one day become a professor. He is recruited by the CIA to help deal with a foreign threat. Meanwhile Erik Lensherr is seeking revenge on the man that killed his mother while he was a young boy in a concentration camp during World War II. Charles and Erik cross paths and realize they each have unique abilities and need to find others that are similar. They put together a small team in hopes of teaching them how to harness their powers. Meanwhile the same man who killed Erik’s mother is now working with the Russians in hopes of starting World War III and wiping out all humans. A very adult Marvel movie, and a great origin story for the 2 lead characters. But it also contained a lot of nonsense and cheesiness that kept it from being a ‘Best Comic Book Movie Ever’ type film like The Dark Knight.
James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender steal the show. Both are great actors and do well portraying the young Professor X and Magneto. They have subtle hints towards Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen while also making the characters their own. It was really fun seeing Charles Xavier mackin it with the ladies in college and not yet being the mature leader he becomes in the future films. Its also great seeing the origin story of Magneto which could have been a movie all to itself (and was supposed to be). He has a lot of character development which makes sense because he becomes one of Marvel’s top villains. Jennifer Lawrence was decent as Raven/Mystique but all the other characters are just uninteresting. In fact, some of them are pretty terrible. Butterfly wings and shooting fireballs out her mouth? Awful. A guy that screams which makes him fly from the soundwaves? Kinda dumb. Don’t even get me started on the tornado maker, a poor man’s Storm. I think it went a little too crazy with the unknown mutants. I know its an origin story so we can’t have many of the characters we know from the comic but the ones they ended up choosing were pretty bad. And they also throw in Rose Byrne as CIA agent Moira MacTaggert, so it was a lot of people to keep up with and try to care about. For the baddies, Kevin Bacon was pretty great as a Lex Luthor type villain named Sebastian Shaw. You generally hated the guy. January Jones as Emma Frost was kind of unnecessary. Just another telepath except she could turn to diamonds to protect herself from her own mind being read. She’s just the eye candy. And the Nightcrawler-like character called Azazel was pretty bad ass. I won’t mention the cameos, but both were really well done.
Matthew Vaughn definitely put together a really great comic book movie. He had an actual event in history, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and somehow made an interesting comic book movie around it. I guess there’s more credit due to the writers there. But after Vaughn did Kick-Ass so wonderfully, I knew we would get another treat from him. Even though I bashed the additional mutants, the main focus of the movie is still great. It could have been called X-Men Origins: Professor X & Magneto and just cut out the whole young student storyline. But then we wouldn’t have origins of Beast or how Mystique joins with Magneto. And that stuff is cool to see. If it wasn’t for the great character portrayals of Professor X and Magneto as young men then I doubt this movie would have been as great as it was. Give all the credit to James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender for keeping the audience invested when you know how its going to end already. Probably the 2nd best movie in the X-Men franchise but I still think X2 was better. But that doesn’t mean this sucker still isn’t MADE!
IMDB – 8.3/10
Rotten Tomatoes – 87%
Movie Wiseguys – 8/10
