Okay, so let me just say that I was expecting X-Men First Class to be pretty good, but not awesome.

I say the following with no shame: It was the best. X-Men. Ever.

Here follows a metric fuckton of spoilers and analysis.



Okay, so. First off the thing that absolutely separates this from all the other X-Men films is the solidity of the characterizations. I don't recognize most of the screenwriters (Ashley Miller, Zack Stentz, Jane Goldman, Matthew Vaughan) but I am filing them away for future reference, because they GOT the characters, and this is very much a character story as well as a comic book flick.

It starts off as like Inglorious Basterds 2 though, with bb!Magneto in the camps and all. Then he grows to become Michael Fassbender and tracks down, one by one, the men who killed his family, tortured him, etc. And y'know, I would have been perfectly happy with a "Magneto hunts Nazis" flick all on its own. But. There's more.

The crux of the story is the epicness that is Xavier and Magneto. This portrayal really spins them as a sort of Kirk-and-Spock dynamic: complete opposites who nonetheless complement each other and literally make each other stronger. Together, these two have unmatched potential and could do amazing things, and like Greek tragedy, it is unbelievably painful that you know they won't. McAvoy and Fassbender also have truly unbelievable chemistry together, completely matching if not actually SURPASSING Stewart and McKellan in their portrayals (yeah I can't believe I just wrote that either but THERE YOU GO). My favorite scene is where they are discussing control of their powers: Magneto wants Xavier to shoot him because rage is his fuel. Xavier refuses because he can't shoot his friend; instead he goes inside Magneto's mind to pluck out a memory "between rage and serenity"--in this case lighting Menorah candles with his mother. Both men shed tears as they relive the moment. Just wow.

And OMG the slasherificness of them! With tasty subtexty text. "You do make an adorable lab rat, Charles!" The swinginess where they lie next to one another on a bed before being treated to a 'private' performance with Angel. And the climactic scene in which they acknowledge, sorrowfully that their ideologies are too different, and as Magneto arrogantly deflects a million bullets, one of them hits Charles.

At the spine.

SO NOT CANON AND I DON'T EVEN CARE BECAUSE IT IS BETTER.

Magneto is horrified and gathers Xavier up IN HIS ARMS and I swear to fucking God I was expecting them to kiss manfully, ala Aragorn and Boromir. But no. (Which is too bad because there was a very cute "don't ask don't tell" joke mid-film.) Sigh.

Now let me switch gears and rhapsodize over bb!Mystique now. I was NOT expecting to love her as much if not more than the boys. Raven is here adopted-ish by a young Xavier when they are like ten and she becomes his sister and they are adorbs together. Then suddenly he's in grad school doing his best to be a manslut and she wants attention from boys but somehow fails even when she's in her blonde form. (To which we can only conclude that all men in the 60s were blind AND gay.) She totally crushes on pre-Beast Beast who has his own self-image issues to work out, and between him and Xavier's cluelessness/(brotherly?) cuttingness she's just a teenage girl who wants a boy to tell her she's pretty.

Which Magneto does. In a really awesome scene, she sneaks into his bedroom. In blonde girl form, he tells her to come back in a few years. She turns into Emma Frost. He says tells her to be herself. She does. They kiss, wonderfully, and let's all pretend X3 never happened and that Magneto would never ever leave her because she was just human, okay?

(Also, the Hugh Jackman cameo? WAS ADORABLE!)

Anyway, I basically kept wanting to hug her and say "To hell with stupid boys! BE WHO YOU WANT TO BE, BABY! If you wanna be an adorable blonde, that's cool! If you wanna be blue, that's cool! WE LOVE YOU THE WAY YOU ARRRRRRRRRRRRRE DAMMIT!" And I just LOVE her forever and ever. *sigh*

Okay, now that the rhapsody's done with, let's talk about the weaker elements.

I found Darwin completely charming and completely wasted. Okay, seriously, you guys HAD to kill the black dude? Really?! HE DOESN'T EVEN DIE IN THE BOOKS. Grrrr.

He, Banshee, Havok, and Angel had the least screentime, less even than Moira McTaggert who is somehow 1) in the CIA and 2) the only chick in the CIA? What? And there's some retro "mockery" of this. Also, fairly inexplicably, the only mannequins around for Havok to practice blasting were female? HEY GUYZ YER MYSOGINY IS SHOWING, WHAT IS THIS EVEN?!

I've read some complaints about Kevin Bacon's performance, though I think considering the amount of time onscreen (not that much considering) he did very well and further, sold it much more than previous X-villains. And of course, his final stand-off with Fassbender was just--wow. Completely brutal and amazing, and each of them--and McAvoy--sold the fuck out of it.



In short: I absolutely adored this film and want to go again. That is all.

ETA: Unlike all the other Marvel flicks, there's no fun stuff after credits. We stayed with a lot of other True Believers and there was nothing and we were sad.

~

Okay, so some nifty things before I got to bed.

Star Trek (reboot) video game. If the whole thing is anything like the sample graphics, I wants it. I wants it nao.

Fandoms Against H8 tees. jim_and_bones posted a link to the "Some Captains Marry Doctors" tee. The shirts represent many fandoms though, including Dr Who, Torchwood, Hawaii 5-0, Supernatural, Harry Potter, and more. The designer is also open to additional pairings/fandoms. HINT F-LISTIES, I NOTICED THERE'S NO LOTR ON THERE! Go fix that. I am meanwhile contemplating whether I could actually suggest (and get away with) "Some Rohirrim Marry Captains. H8 is not Gúthwinë." ...Someone besides me would wear this, y/y?