MOVIE REVIEWS | INTERVIEWS | YOUTUBE |  NEWS |  EDITORIALS | EVENTS | AUDIO | ESSAYS | ARCHIVES | CONTACT |
 PHOTOS | COMING SOON| EXAMINER.COM FILM ARTICLES ||HOME

                                                            
Friday, June 3, 2011

MOVIE REVIEW
X-Men: First Class
A Frosty Reception For Women: Class Dismissed


January Jones as Emma Frost in Matthew Vaughn's "X-Men: First Class", which opened this morning in the U.S. and Canada.  Fox

by Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com        FOLLOW
Friday, June 3, 2011

You needn't be a comic-book aficionado to appreciate "X-Men: First Class", which opened at midnight this morning across the U.S. and Canada.  Matthew Vaughn's superhero action-drama visits the early days of the Marvel characters, spearheaded by Professor Charles Xavier and Magneto, played by James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender respectively.  Mr. Vaughn's film title alludes to the first, or original class of mutants, shunned by society and developed in the CIA's secret laboratory to help combat evil in the world, in this specific film, nuclear war.

Set in the early 1960s in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis and just prior to the Civil Rights Acts of 1964, "First Class" charts the budding friendship between X and Magneto, developing their relationship in a strong manner.  We sense their brother-like bond and the tension that will make them enemies years later.  The scenes with Mr. McAvoy and Mr. Fassbender are especially good, a compelling mix of suspense, conflict and emotional breadth.  They are the sole characters into whom we gain insight and care mostly about, and when they aren't onscreen "First Class" nosedives to No Class.

There's promise and possibility to Mr. Vaughn's film, and he has to assemble all of the  characters, illustrate their purposes and fit them into the story.  Admittedly it's a tough task but the director of such films as "Layer Cake", "Stardust" and "Kick-Ass" is bogged down by an underwritten story that suddenly dispenses of characters and doesn't sufficiently explain the things that they do with their powers.  Sometimes it felt like watching an empty sideshow of carnival exhibits.  Other times it was a rather violent exercise for a PG-13 rated film. 

Some characters are haphazardly developed.  Some are quickly killed off.  (Guess who they are?)  We do not gain the requisite time to settle down with them, including to a degree Moira MacTaggart (Rose Byrne), a lone female CIA officer, rare if at all existent for the time period.  "X-Men: First Class" attempts to set a meaningful balance with its women but obliterates it with a parade of half-naked women. 

Yes it's the Sixties, true -- and I love and adore women.  But I don't always love them in this context, especially on the big screen in this film when ideas about them are being presented and represented.  Every single woman in "First Class" wears a mini-skirt, serving solely at the pleasure of men or at their behest with perhaps one exception.  The film attempts in some instances to correct this, but does using a male character, specifically Magneto (played in other films by Ian McKellen), who usually scolds or dismisses any woman who presents themselves to him or other men. 

This attempt at correctness is wholly outweighed however by a lot of things that sickened me as I watched.  The story wasn't strong enough to overcome these elements and the Sixties, a time of liberation for women, looked in this film like a time of further subjugation.  I was taken out of the film completely by the repeated negativity towards women.  "X-Men: First Class" is hardly the first movie ever made to depict women poorly but it is mostly unapologetic in doing so.  Is this what the original X-Men was about?

"X-Men: First Class" often behaves like a masturbatory camp fantasy run amok, complete with half-naked women (some in bondage) parading through the GQ decor that represents the 1960s.  None of this belongs in a film that's supposed to showcase the early days of a super-trouping band of misunderstood castoffs.  There's an unmistakable (or unintended) undercurrent of pornographic references and innuendo.  In one scene where Prof. X and another mutant flank a porcelain naked female mannequin with a black X across its abdomen, and the professor shouts to a budding young mutant superman, "don't hit me, aim for the X", you can't help thinking that the young man is Burt Reynolds' "Boogie Nights" "new kid on the street" attempting to line up one heck of a gargantuan money shot from distance. 

Mr. Vaughn's film is curious in this and other regards.  Kevin Bacon plays the villain Sebastian Shaw, who has a lot to do with the anger that one of the film's characters has burning within.  Mr. Bacon is suitably campy here, fitting right in with the film's feel.  Still, he and some of the other talented cast members are wasted.  "X-Men: First Class" could have been so much more, but it ends up being a lot, lot less.

With: Jennifer Lawrence, January Jones, Alex Gonzalez, Oliver Platt, Jason Flemyng, Nicholas Hoult, Zoe Kravitz, Caleb Landry Jones, Edi Gathegi.

"X-Men: First Class" is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association Of America for intense sequences of action and violence, some sexual content including brief partial nudity and language.  The film's running time is two hours and 12 minutes.


COPYRIGHT 2011.  POPCORNREEL.COM.  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.                 FOLLOW


SUBSCRIBE TO THE POPCORN REEL MOVIE REVIEWS RSS FEED


MOVIE REVIEWS | INTERVIEWS | YOUTUBE |  NEWS |  EDITORIALS | EVENTS | AUDIO | ESSAYS | ARCHIVES | CONTACT | PHOTOS | COMING SOON| EXAMINER.COM FILM ARTICLES ||HOME