X-Men: First Class

A break from my musings on the New DCU. I went out last night and caught X-Men: First Class last night. Overall, I found it a really fun movie. As I have probably mentioned before, I never go to a comic book movie expecting to see the comic book faithfully reproduced. It happens sometimes, and I don't mind it when it does, but I also understand that sometimes a less episodic medium requires different approaches. And, of course, there is no budgetary concerns in a comic book. The most amazing effects can be done with no problems whatsoever, as long as your artist can draw it.

So, I have no issues with the fact that this comic takes various ideas from different X-men story lines and mashes them together to form its own story. The movie is set during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. The Hellfire Club is prominently feature, including Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw, January Jones as the White Queen, Emma Frost and supported by Azazel, a demonic-looking teleporter (Azazel is only really shown to be a teleporter and swordsman in this movie, not touching on all the other powers he has in the comics) and Riptide, a character who has been changed from the comics into being able to generate whirlwinds rather than being able to spin at incredible speeds and generate bone-like weapons.

The "First Class" was made up of Banshee, Havoc, Angel (but not Warren Worthington), Mystique, Beast and Darwin. On top of this were a young Magneto and Professor X, though older than the characters who make up the class.

The acting overall was quite good. The story flowed well, and the effects were top-notch. This was a great prequel to the X-men movies. I definitely recommend seeing to anyone who enjoys a good super-hero movie, but go in knowing that there are differences. Banshee is not Irish, and neither is Moira MacTaggert. Emma Frost here in her first appearance already has the ability to turn her body to diamond, something that didn't appear until much later in the comics. Riptide was never part of the Hellfire club, nor was Azazel.

If you are a purist, and those kinds of changes are frustrating for you, then you may want to skip it. If You don't know the history of these characters in intimate detail or are able to enjoy a movie that is an alternate look at these kinds of things, this is a fun movie definitely worth seeing. There are all kinds of nice touches. The effect used for the teleporter Azazel is the same as used for Nightcrawler. In the comics, Azazel is Nightcrawler's father. The origin of Magneto's helmet is covered. There are jokes about Xavier's hair. Overall, they really had fun with this movie, and it shows.