Single-Sentence Review of X-Men: First Class

They had a black x-man?

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@Zenrage Not anymore. 😉

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Wait, hold on, this is actually GOOD? Because all the previews made it look like shit.

Fuck. Guess I know what I’m doing tomorrow.

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@Mark: This might enter spoiler territory, but Ironside plays a fairly lengthy role with no reason to give him a name, but Stryker is just addressed in passing.

It was really good to see Ironside though. I can’t remember the last time I saw him in something new.First Class was good for that, really. A collection of fine character actors rotating around the central cast.

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I’m glad it wasn’t just me that thought January Jones was soulless in the role. She could have gone a lot of ways with it: Bond Girl, Ice Queen haughty. I don’t think she went any way at all.

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I agree with Murc. All the previews I’ve seen look horrible.

But every review I’ve seen so far has been full of praise.

They should fire whoever is responsible for the trailers.

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I don’t think it was a mess, timeline wise, at least not in the continuity of the previous films (except for Emma Frost appearing as a youngster in the Wolverine film). In fact, I thought how continuiy was weaved together was pretty amazing.

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Well, there’s no mention of the fact that Alex is Scott’s brother – quite possibly he is Scott’s father. Lets face it, I somehow doubt the films would ever include Scott’s real father… 🙂 and in fact the whole Summer’s family tree is something that could quite happily be thrown out for the better.

I’m pretty sure the only characters in this from the previous films are Prof X, Magneto, Beast and Mystique (+1 other cameo and the mention of Stryker), who all fit in nicely with the other films.

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Yeah, he’s seen on a tv in X-Men 2 – but the Beast in Marvel continuity has changed back and forth from normal to blue (as well as using an image inducer) so I have no problem with that.

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Why does everyone find this such a good movie? I went to an advanced screening and, while I didn’t find it bad, could not say i found it so good either.

It’s okay. A fun, competent movie, but in no way great (not just because it’s not anything impressive, I feel it has some important shortcomings too). X-Men 2 is still the best one of the bunch, in my opinion.

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Along with every one else, I too didn’t care for Emma Frost. What I haven’t heard yet is anyone that thought Mystique was terrible also. Let me be the first to say that I thought Mystique was terrible also.

Otherwise, well done overall.

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I’m still leaning toward X2 as my personal favorite, but this one gets pretty high up there. Not without it’s flaws, but entertaining and rarely has any outright insults to the audience’s intelligence (see Wolverine for a litany of these).

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I think this is probably my favourite X-Men film, simply because it *is* an X-Men film, rather than another film focussing on Wolverine…

Much as I loved this film, and Michael Fassbender, they really need a different mutant bad guy in the next film.

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1. He was not holding Shaw immobile for Erik to murder. He was pleading with Erik NOT to kill him and knew if he let Shaw free, Erik was dead.
2. Your point about the ‘adopting Shaw’s code?’ Shaw wasn’t a Nazi, either.
3. Azazel didn’t teleport. He might have still. There’s a difference.
4. Charles told Raven to go with Erik.

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I admit I was a little let down by the glowing reviews. This was good, but not amazing. MacAvoy (sp?) carried this movie, as did Fassbender (pretty much par for this splendid man) and it was fabulous any time they were on screen. It was also a downfall because any time they *weren’t*, the charisma was kind of sucked out of the movie.

My biggest problem with the movie was that it was a series of scenes. There was so much location jumping … not much felt like it was allowed to breathe and develop.

The cameos were of course fun. The theatre even hooted when Ironside showed up onscreen.

X2 is still, definitely, the best Xmen movie. I know for sure because I went home after seeing First Class yesterday and re-watched it. BAMF!

Also, anything that contradicts X3 is OK by me.

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Darwin didn’t seem that absurdly powerful; he’s in the comics continuity too. Really what he is, is Nemesis Kid from LSH. Kind of powerful up until he’s not.

So, what, is this Azazel guy Nightcrawler’s father?

It really was a James Bond movie with superpowers. All it needed was a opening theme and montange: “Born This Way”, maybe?

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Of all the villains , they use Azazel.
One of the guys that I refuse to acknowledge as existing in cannon & he gets the movie (only good thing Austen did was the Juggernaut…in 2 stories)
Oh well! c’est la vie. a shame they never tried to make Mystique look like a sexy blue woman instead of a lizard woman hybrid thing (Michael Mayhew drew such an awesome Raven that I’m kinda confused they didn’t use that design)

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I thought the movie was quite good except for two points:

(**SPOILERS AHOY**)

1. Erik didn’t even TRY to kill the doctor after the doctor murdered his mother. Obviously with Shaw’s power-set he wouldn’t have been able to, but Erik didn’t know that at the time. But the fact that he didn’t even try–after killing both guards no less–was just stupid. Painfully, jarringly stupid.

2. The CGI of the submarine crashing into the beach was markedly terrible compared to all the other CGI in the film. I wonder if a separate company did that shot. :\

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SPOILERS FOLLOW

@Zach Shaw wasn’t a Nazi, either.

Shaw wasn’t a Nazi? He wore a Nazi uniform, worked for at least a year at Auschwitz, fled to Argentina with other Nazis, conducted hideous medical experiments, and killed an innocent Jew. Her certainly shared the results of some experiments with the other Nazis, and somehow I don’t think Erik’s mother was the only Jew/Gypsy/Homosexual/Disabled Person whom he killed in the camp.

He was a Nazi.

The Shaw character would have made a lot more sense to me if they’d just gone with it –if he had justified his (otherwise capricious) execution of Darwin with a racist comment. Bacon was good in the role — but Shaw didn’t work for me as a character at all.

1) Shaw’s evil plan — his grand idea — is to nuke civilization and then mutants will rule. This is the stupidest plan in comic movie history. Luthor “land scam” in Superman Returns is brilliant by comparison. Here’s a hint Shaw — underwear clad ladies are a lot less sexy with radiation sickness and third degree burns from fallout.

2) Comics Shaw was cool because he could toss around Nightcrawler and Wolverine like dolls and go toe-to-toe with Colussus. Movie Shaw — his absorption of power was kind of cool, but his projection of power was pretty much the same power set as the Energizer. “I’m going to conquer the world with the power of a pigtailed 8-year old girl.” Comics Shaw is also cool because he is devious and you can see why the Hellfire Club would follow him. Movies are allowed to be different, yes, but if they are not as good, they pay the price.

3) Like Tim Burton’s Batman (where Joker killed the Waynes) or Spider Man 3 (where Flint Marko killed Uncle Ben), having Shaw be the Nazi who killed Erik’s mother, and later the main villain, is a cheap way of driving emotion into the story. I was so happy when Nolan fixed that in his batverse. Now it’s all over the Xverse forever.

4) What was the point of the “Shaw absorbs the reactor energy” bit? In the end he was defeated mostly by a broken “groovy 70’s mirror wall”. Did he use that energy for anything? For an evil mastermind who’d accumulated a lot of power in 2 decades, he didn’t really have a lot of strategy.

Don’t let my grumpiness ruin it for the rest of you, but I would place this 4th out of 5 — better only than Wolverine. Also weak:

If Angel was that prone to treachery, why would Charles have recruited her? He can read minds.
Unmutated Beast didn’t seem to have any powers but the feet powers. Where the superstrength and inborn agility?
Why didn’t Banshee, Havok, and Beast try and stop Magneto when he was controlling the missiles? (and don’t say because Azazel Riptide and Buggirl were there — Havok or Banshee could have dropped all three in less than a second).
Lots of things were not invented in 1962 but rubber bullets are not among them. Moira would not have tried to shoot Erik with metal.
I hated Darwin’s death, I did. It took me out of the movie and the movie never got me back.
How did Azazel manage to survive five seconds fighting a group that included Erik? Do not bring a sword to fight Magneto. Also, Azazel sucks in general.
My brother can say “go with that guy” all he wants but if he’s just been shot in the spine, I’m staying. They could have and should have had Raven go to Magneto at the school scene with Moira and Charles. If for no other reason than that I am not going anywhere with with 3 Nazi collaborators who were trying to kill me 5 minutes ago. Especially if I have to freaking hold hands with them.
Was I the only one who wanted Piotr Rasputin’s dad to come off the Russian ship, metal up, and snap Riptide’s neck? Probably…

Wow, what a geeky rant. I felt sad and disappointed at the end of this movie. My hopes are high for Cap!

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@Zach — like I said, don’t let me spoil it for you. I think you’re wrong on pretty much every point, and you think I’m wrong, whatever.

But…Shaw was lying. He wore the uniform, did experiemnts, and murdered at Auschwicz. That is a Nazi.

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“@Zach — like I said, don’t let me spoil it for you. I think you’re wrong on pretty much every point, and you think I’m wrong, whatever.

But…Shaw was lying. He wore the uniform, did experiments, and murdered at Auschwicz. That is a Nazi.”

Okay, what do you think a ‘Nazi’ is? Shaw was pretty obviously not a Nazi. He worked with them. He used them as a means to an end. He was, however, likely not a member of the National Socialist party and disparaged the Nazis, calling their ideas of purity absurd.

Quite a few of your points are simply a result of not seeing what the movie actively gave you.

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@Quixon
Sorry to have not been clear, but i was not aiming anything at you. I was using the example that you used, but i wasn’t targeting you. Sorry for that.

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Why didn’t Banshee, Havok, and Beast try and stop Magneto when he was controlling the missiles?

I had this thought too, but then I realized you basically have a group of schoolkids watching their 2 mentors having a fight and not knowing what to do. Magneto did just save them from getting killed by those missiles. I’d have been hesitant to attack the only guy standing between me and those warships.

But I agree that it made no sense for Raven to happily go off with the people who killed Dawin, who were trying to kill her and her friends, the guy who just crippled her brother.

And I agree with you about Shaw. Didn’t he rebuke one of his henchmen, telling them not to kill other mutants? And then he kills Darwin?

And if they had paid more attention to the whole ’60s setting, surely someone would have made a comment about Darwin being black. It would have seemed natural coming from Shaw — yes he was a Nazi, working with the Nazis in the camps makes you a Nazi. If “I was just following orders” is no excuse, “I had my own agenda” certainly isn’t.

On the other hand, I loved the fact that Xavier used the “innocent men on those ships just following orders” line, saying exactly the wrong thing to push the wrong buttons with Erik. Almost as if Xavier wasn’t used to being tactful without being able to use telepathy to help.

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Short version: you don’t have to be a Nazi to commit crimes against humanity, and committing such crimes will not automatically make you a Nazi, either. Such a reductive view will prevent a full understanding of history.

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Shaw told his people not to kill mutants when he was still making the sales pitch. He killed Darwin because Darwin had betrayed him, as an object lesson to the rest of the FC who had chosen not to side with him.

And he straight up told the audience the reason why he wanted to start a nuclear war – he believed that increasing the amount of radiation would cause more children of the atom (mutants) to exist.

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The rumoured Rosamund Pike would have been a much better Emma Frost.

Strong movie, overall, apart from some supporting characters who are just kind of there (this only really becomes problematic when real plot points hinge on them, as with Angel’s defection, which happens way, way too quickly).

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you don’t have to be a Nazi to commit crimes against humanity, and committing such crimes will not automatically make you a Nazi

The original question is whether it would have been better characterization to portray Shaw as a racist. Lots of people were racists in that time and place. The fact that he was willing to work in the Nazi death camps, helping exterminate Jews among other things, that he was not morally outraged by this, seems like a pretty good reason to assume, yes he would more likely than not have been a racist, whether or not he was actual a member of the German National Socialist party.

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Joseph said: “1. Erik didn’t even TRY to kill the doctor after the doctor murdered his mother. Obviously with Shaw’s power-set he wouldn’t have been able to, but Erik didn’t know that at the time. But the fact that he didn’t even try–after killing both guards no less–was just stupid. Painfully, jarringly stupid.”

Erik had little control over his power at that point. Note that the two soldiers already had metal surrounding their skulls, all Erik had to do was vaguely crunch out of anger to kill. He couldn’t fling anything with any aim, just crush and flail object around without direction.

OK movie, fun but flawed in several ways. Certainly not better than the far more tense and credible X2.

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Prodigal says:
And he straight up told the audience the reason why he wanted to start a nuclear war – he believed that increasing the amount of radiation would cause more children of the atom (mutants) to exist.

Yes I heard that. And that’s why I called it the stupidest plan ever. A billion people, including most of the living mutants in Europe and North America, die — and mutants will rise out of the irradiated world?

Sure mutants would rise, but that doesn’t make the plan un-stupid. Shaw could not have known the nature of mutants born from the heavily irradiated future. Would they be homo superior or something else? Would they really follow the lead of the man who’d pretty much destroyed the world? Killed their forebearers in an awful way?

Ah well, if his plan had worked, those second generation mutants would at least have killed Shaw … there’s a plan I can admire…

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Because he was still hoping to lure the rest of them over, I think. Darwin he clearly couldn’t trust; and even if Darwin had a genuine change of heart later–which seemed unlikely anyway–you just don’t let people into your inner circle who have already tried to betray you.

I don’t think it’s out of line to consider Shaw a Nazi, mind you–I doubt the people who suffered under the Reich really gave much of a damn what the individual personal beliefs were of the people who tried to destroy them–but I’m pretty sure his idea of racial purity was mutants-only, not Aryans-only. I mean, with the exception of Frost, his crew was not exactly filled with people a Nazi would want to hang out with. And he seemed pleased with who he got to defect: Angel and Darwin (when he thought Darwin was sincere), the only people of color on the X-team.

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1. Shaw’s not a Nazi, he just had an office at their death camp? How would he even have gotten that position, except by doing Nazi stuff for a reasonable length of time? Complete philosophical commitment is a minor detail when your job description is “war criminal.”

2. Having no preconceived notions of Emma Frost as a character, I didn’t find her portrayal terrible. I thought that she and Shaw had a good casual villainy going on.

3. Rose Byrne spied in her underwear believably and with dignity.

4. Charles shafted Moira MacTaggert pretty badly, but to what end? Is the C.I.A. not just going to find him at the massive castle he lives in that’s been in his family for decades and was his childhood home? Hell, it’s probably in the phone book under “Xavier, C.”

5. Was there no plan to stop the missile ship? Magneto could surely have bent its rudder.

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“Mystique is a “person of color” too!”

Heh, but she’s played by white girls in all the movies. I guess what that means is real-life has far more resonance than the fictional in this regard.

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Kevin Bacon in an ascot bears a scary resemblance to Dick Cavett.

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