The secret of good film criticism is to not criticise the film, at least not in the sense of "this film is a piece of shit and I don't know what the writer/director/producer/star (delete as appropriate) was thinking". Actually, that is one of the problems with a lot of criticism; we don't know what the creator was thinking and we project our own ideas onto the work when we watch it. Of course, with the advent of DVDs and mass media, filmmakers and other creatives are more than happy to divulge their inner thoughts for all and sundry and, more often than not, to justify any shortcomings of the work rather than let it speak for itself. What a good film critic/reviewer should do is discuss the film's themes and stimulate debate, and if the film does have shortcomings, discuss them from an informed standpoint. Now you are probably wondering what this has to do X-MEN: FIRST CLASS, the rebooting of comic-book movie franchise?
The thing is, X-MEN: FIRST CLASS is a cracking comic-book, superhero movie with a smart script, superb performances from the stellar ensemble cast, and some spectacular action sequences. It's got everything a fanboy would want from an X-MEN movie – and January Jones. Again, the British are showing the Americans how best to do their contributions to popular culture. (I know that the Americans didn't invent comics or cinema, but they did make them popular, and killed the culture part in the process). With three movies, countless cartoons, and nearly 50 years of comics, the themes of X-Men have been analysed to death. We know it is about bullying and prejudice and thankfully the creative team behind this latest movie have kept that intact. In fact, by taking the story back to the origins of the X-Men, or least a version of the origins, the creators have further highlighted the bullying/prejudice theme, and have gone one step further. By putting the story in a real historical setting, the Cuban Missile Crisis – one we don't know a great deal of truth about - at least it adds an interesting talking point, "Who was behind the Bay of Pigs?" Of course it wasn't a bunch of mutants, but there were certainly some sinister (human) forces at work intent on creating a state of fear and division amongst the general public that would take a gang of superheroes to overcome.
Marvel have been churning out origins movies for quite a while now and this one certainly ranks up there with the best of them, even if it does cram in a lot of different storylines as we find out about the beginning and end of the friendship between Professor X and Magneto. And there's a great cameo that's not Stan Lee.
It's definitely more entertaining than THOR, but in the end it is still a comic-book superhero movie no matter how good the acting is or what the loosely veiled themes and messages are.
