X-Men: First Class Detailed Review
I finally unwillingly decided to watch X-Men First Class despite my initial disgust to it. From the posters and trailers that were released when the movie first came out, along with the cast members chosen, I expected this movie to be an utter failure. After many weeks of refusing to watch this movie due to its insult to the original X-Men, I finally sat down to watch it and was hoping I would be proven wrong. I was right all along. The movie was an utter disaster in my opinion and I KNEW it would happen from the beginning.
I really don't even know where to begin with this review. I guess I'll start with the cast chosen because that was when I first knew it was going to suck. James McAvoy as Charles Xavier aka Professor X was a big mistake. He did an okay job in the film Wanted, but I knew right away he didn't really fit the role of the leader of the X-Men. He's not a good actor at all. For me, he ruined the character completely. The cast was really weak and the characters he chose to include in the film were so random and most had absolutely nothing to do with the original members of the team. I wouldn't have minded if they named the film something else and made their own version. But to title it First Class and only have one of the five original members is a spit on the original story, and for me, he used its popularity as a ploy to get more people interested in such a shitty film. At least they got one role down correctly, and that was Michael Fassbender as Magneto. He was one of only two characters (including Emma Frost) who actually felt like their comic book counterpart. His story, emotions, and role were spot on for the character. I can't really say that about anyone else in the film. His rise to become Magneto was one of the only good parts of the story and film in all honesty. Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw was a good choice for both the actor and the villain. He was a good starter boss if you will. Rose Byrne as Moira MacTaggert was a good pick, but her role was almost nonexistant in the film aside from witnessing the Hellfire Club scene and finding Charles. I didn't like how she was a CIA agent instead of a brilliant scientist like in the comics. If that was the only thing they changed to fit the story I would have been okay with it, but it was the addition of so many examples of alterations that compounded the level of annoyance overall for me. I was really offended by the portrayal of Mystique in this movie. They made her out to be on the good side until the end, but in her real story, she basically works for evil intentions and sides with bad groups for the most part. Having Charles and Mystique so close they considered each other brother and sister was so random compared to the real story. Her little fling with Beast should never have happened. At least they alluded to Nightcrawler's origin with Mystique and Azazel both siding with Magneto at the end. I hated how they tried to connect beast turning into a blue monster with Mystique's own color. I swear it's as if the writer knew nothing of the real stories except the characters looks and names and decided to make up his own thing which turned out to be pure garbage. The makeup job on Beast was horrible. He looked more like a pussy cat than an ape-like beast. I think they felt they had to make something much different than Beast in X-Men: The Last Stand, which looked really authentic, and it turned out like crap. Justice was served in that regard because they never should have made the film in the first place with all of their changes to the original story. At least they included the character in the film titled First Class. At least they got 1 of the original 5 members right. Lord knows why they decided to use the most random characters I've ever seen. Banshee instead of Angel, Havok instead of his brother Cyclops, and Darwin and Angel, the two most random characters I've ever heard of from the marvel universe, instead of Iceman and Jean Grey. Why these random and unnecessary changes were made still perplexes me. The same goes for the evil villains in the film. Riptide and Azazel? Come on they could have picked much better villains than those two in order to make the formation of the Brotherhood led by Magneto more convincing. They even changed the powers of Riptide basically modeling Storm! What crap was that! It was seriously a joke. I have to say January Jones as Emma Frost was appealing to me. She convincingly portrayed that sex appeal and mindpower she has just like in the comics. At least they added the cameo by Wolverine. That, along with Emma Frost's and Magneto's characters were the ONLY good things about the entire film.
Overall, the actors and the comic characters chosen for this film were an utter failure in my eyes. The had the opportunity to make a great film on a great story, and decided to change the entire thing and it turned out like crap in the end. It was just another example of a pompous director/writer thinking he can make something better than the original, which we all know shouldn't be attempted. The special effects and fighting were lacking. It's as if they made the movie with technology from 10 years ago if not older. The scene in X-Men 2 with Nightcrawler in the White House was MUCH better than any of the fighting and teleportation effects done by Azazel in the new one. The flight scene between Banshee and Angel looked so freaking fake as well. They must have pocketed some of the budget costs because there's no way this was the quality of a $160 million movie. Even the story was weak. It was just a bad movie, and a nightmare for any real comic fan. It was a poorly done film in all aspects. I am giving this movie a 4/10. Two points for Magneto's role, one point for Emma Frost, and the last point for Hugh Jackman's cameo appearance as Wolverine. The rest of the movie was a complete mess that I suspected from the beginning, and I encourage any comic fan to never see this movie if they haven't yet suffered through it because it was so disappointing. I wasted over 2 hours watching a film that I am comparing to the first Hulk film, which I never thought anything could come close to it in terms of such crappy quality, and almost 2 hours wasting my time writing this review. All of the previous X-Men movies were much better than this one even with some major errors in those as well. For the most part I tend to highly rate most movies I see and am fairly lenient, but this joke of a film that had the audacity to call itself first class is one of the exceptions and just could not bare it and it deserves to be absolutely bashed on.
I really don't even know where to begin with this review. I guess I'll start with the cast chosen because that was when I first knew it was going to suck. James McAvoy as Charles Xavier aka Professor X was a big mistake. He did an okay job in the film Wanted, but I knew right away he didn't really fit the role of the leader of the X-Men. He's not a good actor at all. For me, he ruined the character completely. The cast was really weak and the characters he chose to include in the film were so random and most had absolutely nothing to do with the original members of the team. I wouldn't have minded if they named the film something else and made their own version. But to title it First Class and only have one of the five original members is a spit on the original story, and for me, he used its popularity as a ploy to get more people interested in such a shitty film. At least they got one role down correctly, and that was Michael Fassbender as Magneto. He was one of only two characters (including Emma Frost) who actually felt like their comic book counterpart. His story, emotions, and role were spot on for the character. I can't really say that about anyone else in the film. His rise to become Magneto was one of the only good parts of the story and film in all honesty. Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw was a good choice for both the actor and the villain. He was a good starter boss if you will. Rose Byrne as Moira MacTaggert was a good pick, but her role was almost nonexistant in the film aside from witnessing the Hellfire Club scene and finding Charles. I didn't like how she was a CIA agent instead of a brilliant scientist like in the comics. If that was the only thing they changed to fit the story I would have been okay with it, but it was the addition of so many examples of alterations that compounded the level of annoyance overall for me. I was really offended by the portrayal of Mystique in this movie. They made her out to be on the good side until the end, but in her real story, she basically works for evil intentions and sides with bad groups for the most part. Having Charles and Mystique so close they considered each other brother and sister was so random compared to the real story. Her little fling with Beast should never have happened. At least they alluded to Nightcrawler's origin with Mystique and Azazel both siding with Magneto at the end. I hated how they tried to connect beast turning into a blue monster with Mystique's own color. I swear it's as if the writer knew nothing of the real stories except the characters looks and names and decided to make up his own thing which turned out to be pure garbage. The makeup job on Beast was horrible. He looked more like a pussy cat than an ape-like beast. I think they felt they had to make something much different than Beast in X-Men: The Last Stand, which looked really authentic, and it turned out like crap. Justice was served in that regard because they never should have made the film in the first place with all of their changes to the original story. At least they included the character in the film titled First Class. At least they got 1 of the original 5 members right. Lord knows why they decided to use the most random characters I've ever seen. Banshee instead of Angel, Havok instead of his brother Cyclops, and Darwin and Angel, the two most random characters I've ever heard of from the marvel universe, instead of Iceman and Jean Grey. Why these random and unnecessary changes were made still perplexes me. The same goes for the evil villains in the film. Riptide and Azazel? Come on they could have picked much better villains than those two in order to make the formation of the Brotherhood led by Magneto more convincing. They even changed the powers of Riptide basically modeling Storm! What crap was that! It was seriously a joke. I have to say January Jones as Emma Frost was appealing to me. She convincingly portrayed that sex appeal and mindpower she has just like in the comics. At least they added the cameo by Wolverine. That, along with Emma Frost's and Magneto's characters were the ONLY good things about the entire film.
Overall, the actors and the comic characters chosen for this film were an utter failure in my eyes. The had the opportunity to make a great film on a great story, and decided to change the entire thing and it turned out like crap in the end. It was just another example of a pompous director/writer thinking he can make something better than the original, which we all know shouldn't be attempted. The special effects and fighting were lacking. It's as if they made the movie with technology from 10 years ago if not older. The scene in X-Men 2 with Nightcrawler in the White House was MUCH better than any of the fighting and teleportation effects done by Azazel in the new one. The flight scene between Banshee and Angel looked so freaking fake as well. They must have pocketed some of the budget costs because there's no way this was the quality of a $160 million movie. Even the story was weak. It was just a bad movie, and a nightmare for any real comic fan. It was a poorly done film in all aspects. I am giving this movie a 4/10. Two points for Magneto's role, one point for Emma Frost, and the last point for Hugh Jackman's cameo appearance as Wolverine. The rest of the movie was a complete mess that I suspected from the beginning, and I encourage any comic fan to never see this movie if they haven't yet suffered through it because it was so disappointing. I wasted over 2 hours watching a film that I am comparing to the first Hulk film, which I never thought anything could come close to it in terms of such crappy quality, and almost 2 hours wasting my time writing this review. All of the previous X-Men movies were much better than this one even with some major errors in those as well. For the most part I tend to highly rate most movies I see and am fairly lenient, but this joke of a film that had the audacity to call itself first class is one of the exceptions and just could not bare it and it deserves to be absolutely bashed on.
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