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ScarletSmith
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- Review count2
- Helpfulness votes0
- First reviewJune 18, 2011
- Last reviewJune 20, 2011
- Featured reviews0
- Average rating4
ScarletSmith's Reviews
Overall rating
5
/
5
Utterly Brilliant
PostedJune 20, 2011
ScarletSmith
from Washington, DC
I saw a truly great comic book hero movie this weekend...and it wasn't GREEN LANTERN.
X-MEN: FIRST CLASS is easily the best Marvel movie since IRON MAN, and crackles with life, vibrance, and an almost-operatic scope and scale. Credit here to a fantastic cast headed by the amazing James McAvoy as master telepath Charles Xavier and an equally brilliant Michael Fassbender as master of magnetism Erik Lenscher. The two men form the movie's backbone, and their interaction drives the great script to pulse-pounding perfection, even when they're doing something as silly as picking up a mutant in a strip club...or something as intense as combining their powers to stop WW3,
Set against the backdrop of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the stakes for humanity have never been higher, and the question of man's ultimate destiny has never been more pointed. Charles' eternal optimism about the future of mankind and Erik's raging disdain for humans who view mutants as mere pawns or lab rats are always running just beneath the surface...and the climactic battle as the Soviet ships reach the US blockade line brings out both the best and worst in both men. Kevin Bacon nicely hams it up playing Sebastian Shaw, a nearly-immortal mutant who can absorb power and energy and turn it back into any weapon he desires.Shaw has ties to Erik and a desire to take control of Charles' first class of young mutants, and he brings the two near-brothers into their ultimate conflict that drives the rest of the X-Men series.
The movie runs 2:11, but feels easily an hour shorter; there's not a slow moment in the movie, and the cool vibe of the early 60s echoes through the direction, the editing, and especially the acting. There are also a couple of great X-Men historical moments--Hank McCoy trying to contain his inner beast being the best of them--and a couple of cute cameos (Charles and Erik run into a mutant in a Canadian bar that will be VERY recognizable to X-fans).There are even in-jokes about the characters' later incarnation in the original X-Men movies (the best one: When Charles tries out Cerebro for the first time and Hank offers to shave his head for better contact with the helmet's electrodes, Charles bluntly responds, "Don't touch my hair"). No end-tag was the only thing disappointing me about the movie, but even that felt fine after realizing there wasn't any need for a tag.
Want to see a really good comic book movie? Try X-MEN: FIRST CLASS. You won't be disappointed.
Yes, I recommend this movie.
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Overall rating
3
/
5
Better than Expected, but...
PostedJune 18, 2011
ScarletSmith
from Washington, DC
The good news first: This isn't nearly as bad as the mainstream critics are making it out to be. In fact, it's a LOT better than I expected. There's a lot to like here, and it starts with Ryan Reynolds, whose performance here one could probably compare/contrast w/ Robert Downey Jr. in IRON MAN: Unlike Downey's surreal smoothness from the start, you spend several minutes watching Reynolds and saying, "No...no...OK, that wasn't bad...all right, THAT'S what I was waiting to see." That moment is reached when he finally takes the oath and then takes hold of the role, and from there the movie revs up...
...and then stalls out again. That's the main problem with the movie: It's easily 15-20 too long, because scenes that should crackle with life sputter out between big set moments. Even the first time GL saves the day on Earth, which itself is amazing, drags so-o-o slowly in its setup. Clip 30 seconds here, a minute there, speed up the action sequences, and you'd have a LOT better movie.
3D: Worth it ONCE. GL's constructs do look amazing in 3D, but after that the punch is lost, and it's just more budget filler. It's as if someone said "Hey, we're spending $300M on this movie, isn't it great?" No. It isn't. Spend your money where it counts, not on ridiculous 3D gimmickry.
Movie as a whole: Definitely worth it once (though, thanks to a projector failure, I got to see it twice, both for free, so I'm probably a little more charitable than any fan paying full price). Enjoy yourself.
Yes, I recommend this movie.
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