What You Should Have Seen #20

X-Men: First Class

I think I should have watched this in the theater instead of on DVD. With the inclusion of Magneto’s concentration camp scene from the first movie, the movie sort of goes out of its way to show you that this isn’t a remake or a reboot, but an in-continuity prequel.

There is so much to like about this movie. The casting is superb. The acting is wonderful. The action and effects are seamless. The nods to the comic book continuity are excellent, and the changes are perfectly acceptable.

I feel the need to make comments that will quite possibly spoil things. But, apparently people like spoilers.

NOTES!:

• “Groovy mutation.”
• Moira is a CIA operative? Apparently she’s no longer Scottish, and Banshee is no longer Irish. I’m okay with that. Shaw is also a Nazi.
• I like the explanation for the helmet Magneto will eventually wear.
• I don’t know who the wind guy Shaw has is. IMDB says it’s Riptide, one of the minor Marauders. Eh, okay.
• I like Xavier’s early cockiness.
• I’m okay with McCoy being the “Q” for Xavier. SOMEBODY had to make all this stuff, right?
• “Are you sure we can’t shave your head?”
  “Don’t touch my hair.”
• Angel was one of my least favorite new mutants from Grant Morrison’s run. At least she’s pretty, here.

• How much older is Alex Summers than Scott? Isn’t SCOTT supposed to be the older brother?
• This movie has probably the best cameo I’ve seen in a comic book movie.
• I don’t like Havok’s plasma hula hoops. I’m glad that gets fixed.
• I know OF Azazel, but I’m not familiar with his characterization. I know he’s Nightcrawler’s dad and that he’s a demon. Here, though, he appears to just be a red, evil Nightcrawler…and I’m okay with that.
• I’m only slightly familiar with Darwin and his most recent appearances in X-Factor…but by the nature of his mutation, wouldn’t he still have survived Shaw’s attack?
• I was really hoping for a Basic Instinct scene when Emma was in the interrogation room. I guess that was too much to hope for in a PG-13 comic book movie.
• Jennifer Lawrence is incredibly beautiful, and I’ll take her over Rebecca Romijn any day. She looks real. The brief cameo was another nice nod to the original movies, though.
• January Jones is also very pretty, but at the moment I can only see her as Mrs. Don Draper. The way she carries herself doesn’t seem to fit with the Emma Frost I’m most familiar with. I like the take-charge, smart-ass Emma Frost. That’s not January Jones.

I want more. There’s, what, more than 30 years between the events of this movie and the first X-Men movie? What happened since? I want to know NOW!

If you like comic books, watch this movie. If you like action movies, watch this movie. If you like good acting by good actors, watch this movie.

Probably for the rest of the month I’m going to whore myself out with an impassioned plea: click on the ads. PLEASE click on the ads. I don’t care if you exit it out of it immediately or actually look around. This isn’t some professional blog where I believe in the products I’m shilling. These are automatic ads placed by Google. But my experiment this weekend proved to me that I actually AM making a spot of cash whenever the ads are clicked. So I’m going to put this little disclaimer on the bottom of all my posts for the next month or so, and I hope you’ll take an extra 10 seconds after reading my blog to click on an ad. Thanks so much!