Film review: X-Men: First Class

BACK in time. Back with a vengeance.That's what the report card will show for X-Men: First Class.

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BACK in time. Back with a vengeance.That's what the report card will show for X-Men: First Class.

It's a barnstorming blockbuster that restores every lost bit of lustre to the once-faded X-Men franchise.

Director Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass) injects this $120 million prequel with the same electric energy and back-to-basics brilliance that J.J. Abrams brought to 2009's Star Trek reboot.

This should be recommendation enough for any comic-book aficionado who feared the X-Men had lost their way for good.

The film sets a fast and furious pace in its early stretches, catapulting viewers back to the early 1960s, where future foes Professor X and Magneto are best friends battling a common enemy.

Still trading under their given names of Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender), the two mutant freedom fighters join forces with the CIA to take down super-powered Nazi villain Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon).

If that plot synopsis sounds crazy on first impressions, just wait until you see how it ties in with the famous Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

That's right. Before the X-Men had even got themselves organised as a brand-name mutant militia, they'd already gone ahead and saved the world from self-destruction.

While First Class does not take itself too seriously for too long throughout - a surprise five-second cameo by Hugh Jackman as Wolverine is a humorous high point - the film's focus on the origin stories of several key X-Men characters is always to the fore.

The polar-opposite backgrounds of Charles (a sophisticated and witty Oxford academic) and Erik (an intense loner who lost his family in the Holocaust) provide real dramatic light and shade to the tale.

Fassbender and McAvoy are terrific, immediately nailing their characters in a conclusive manner that makes follow-up films a formality.

The duo stand out from an equally fine support cast led by recent Oscar nominee Jennifer Lawrence as the conflicted young chameleon Raven/Mystique, January Jones as the Avengers-esque bad girl Emma Frost and Australia's Rose Byrne as Charles' staunch CIA ally (and possible future love interest) Moira MacTaggert.

Remarkably, there is also just enough breathing room in a jam-packed screenplay to allow some introductory face time to junior mutants such as Beast (Nicholas Hoult), Banshee (Caleb Landry Jones), Angel (Zoe Kravitz), Darwin (Edi Gathegi) and Havok (Lucas Till).

Factor in top-notch special effects and a spectacularly gripping finale, and you've got one of the best action releases of 2011 in X-Men: First Class.

* X-Men: First Class (M)

Directors: Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass)
Starring: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Rose Byrne, Kevin Bacon, Jennifer Lawrence.
Star rating: * * * 1/2