X-Men: First Class Review

What a great movie to start the site off with. Matthew Vaughn's X-Men: First Class has been called a last attempt at revitalizing a sinking franchise. The first few in the series helmed by Bryan Singer were met with critical acclaim, success at the box office, and it's been said began the influx of comic book related properties in Hollywood. The third in the series X-Men: The Last Stand, put out by "director for hire" Brett Ratner, and its subsequent prequel/follow up X-Men Origins: Wolverine were again, undoubtedly box office smashes. Whether these last two films were warranted or of any worthwhile quality is another story entirely (they aren't).  Originally planned as another prequel under the X-Men Origins banner, First Class was to be the origin story of Erik Lensherr aka Magneto played by Michael Fassbender. During the tumultuous process that is the Hollywood "fast track," Vaughn was hired, and the story retooled as a prequel/reboot of the original series, in which we witness the growth and later deterioration of the relationship between Magneto and Charles Xavier aka Professor X. Now before I get on to whether the movie is any good or not, I believe it should be of great interest to anyone seeing the film, that it started shooting in September of 2010. That means Matthew Vaughn was able to put this movie together from script to release in a little less than eleven months. For any of you who that doesn't make jump out of your seat, go ahead, jump out of your seat. This is a 120 million dollar X-Men movie people! It's not supposed to be a rush job. I'll say this, First Class is a feat of rushed film making and a pretty damn good X-Men movie too. The movie takes the Inglourious Basterds route, and inserts itself into a real historical event. In this case, the Cuban missile crisis. The big baddie moving the story forward, Sebastian Shaw played by Kevin Bacon is somehow both a mustache twirling Bond villain and nicely underplayed at the same time. We meet him in the 1940's as the SS Officer Klaus Schmidt who runs the concentration camp where Erik discovers his powers. Meanwhile in Westchester, NY we're introduced to Charles Xavier, a young and wealthy telepath who takes in a shapeshifter named Raven. These opening scenes