X-Men: First Class (2011)

P365 Film #150

As a kid, I was a fan of X-Men. I never really read the comics, but I loved the animated TV series and collected the trading cards. When X-Men (2000) came out I liked it a lot and I still do. X-Men 2 (2003) was even better. However, both X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) and X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) were disappointing. Not horrible, but not as good as the first two. Therefore, when I heard about this prequel film coming out, I was pretty sceptical and I wasn’t really impressed by the trailers. Then I read a few reviews recently and they were all very positive so I began to have hope. So, what did I think? Well, as a film, it wasn’t perfect. I feel like, if you’re not a comic book/superhero movie fan, this won’t do too much for you. But for myself, as an X-Men fan? It was fantastic! I was extremely pleased with the outcome. One of things I liked most (and that I didn’t expect) was how faithful it was to the other films. From big things like cameos from future characters to little things like Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr playing chess together. A few of these little references really had me grinning. The action scenes were fine, but they weren’t my favourite scenes. I liked the character-driven scenes much more. I wasn’t a big fan of the over-the-top main villain, but it didn’t detract from the film itself. The casting was good too. I won’t say too much more about it except that I really enjoyed it overall and if they make any further films in the series, I hope they will be in this trend.