Sometimes Hollywood manages to misstep into a modest level of quality. Considering the ratio of garbage comic book adaptations they've been putting out for a decade, one can only assume that happy accidents (such as the director, writer or producer actually wanting to do a good thing) are the only cause for such rare occurrences. While it was never destined to be an amazing or life-affirming adventure, X-Men: First Class retains a competence and, dare I say, intelligence that breathes modest new life into the superhero genre.
The film is made by Matthew Vaughan, which, at this point in his career, doesn't really tell you much. The man has only directed three other movies, two of them terrible (Kick-Ass, Stardust) and one of them quite good (Layer Cake). Kick-Ass is the only other comic book adaptation Vaughan has done and, hoooo boy, is that a god awful train wreck of a movie. Not only is it blatantly sexist, junior high school hip and unfunny, it's also weirdly paced and the action sequences, save for one, are so dull you'll want to pluck your eyes out of your head and pour hydrochloric acid into the sockets.
So, First Class is a bit of a new thing for Vaughan. The director does what he can to fairly represent all the origins and back-stories of the major players in the X-Men chronology by providing insight as to how the team of super mutants was first formed. Before Professor X became a stuffy Right Said Fred paraplegic, he was Charles Xavier, a tussel-haired ladies man at Oxford University, obsessed with genetic mutations. Before Magneto was a taciturn silver fox in fashionable red and purple, he was Erik Lehnsherr, a Polish refugee, experimented on by a rogue doctor (later to be Sebastian Shaw) working for the Nazis during the Holocaust. It's this paradigm that the movie revolves around - the forming of a mutant division in the C.I.A., the rising hostilities of Cuban Missile Crisis-era Cold War, the desire to see a mutant dominant or mutant co-existent world - it all hinges on the dueling philosophies of Xavier and Lehnsherr.
Vaughan does an admirable job of giving his main actors some breathing room. James McAvoy plays Xavier at first with a breezy confidence, but he soon turns into a compassionate "fun dad" as he takes on the responsibility of teaching students how to control their powers. Michael Fassbender plays Lehnsherr as a brooding revolutionary, using his station within the C.I.A. mutant division to hunt down the man who killed his mother. The character development is about as well-paced as it may get in terms of the Hollywood blockbuster. Xavier and Lehnsherr share many tender moments and contentious debates. You feel like these two have become actual friends, rather than the relationship just being a device to set future-flung plots into motion.
That said, First Class does still feel ultimately forgettable. The time taken to foster a relationship between the two leads forces others to the wayside - Beast and Mystique, White Queen and Shaw, Lehnsherr and Mystique, Xavier and McTaggert - all end up feeling empty and unnecessary. On the other hand, the action and special effects look decent. The scene where Lehnsherr lifts an entire submarine out of the ocean and when he forces missiles back at the ships that originally fired them are definitely fun to watch. But ultimately, it's transitory. You don't feel that exacting satisfaction because such scenes have not been effectively built up to. It's more of a revolving door carnival, "LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT THESE CRAZY POWERS I HAVE, I MATTER IN THIS FILM", especially from background characters we only kind of care about (Banshee, Azazel, Havok, Angel and Darwin).
Like I talked about in my Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II review, many Hollywood franchises are subject to the double cheeseburger effect - the idea that too much, too fast will keep the audience blindly intrigued and force them to accept the thin characters and story arcs present with a stifled, conciliatory satisfaction. First Class suffers from the double cheeseburger effect but, unlike Deathly Hallows, Part II, manages to cut the burger in half and eat it just a little more moderately. The best thing that Vaughan does here, is show that superhero films can be smart AND entertaining. Proving the importance of effective pacing is an entirely different (and much more difficult) battle to fight.
