First of all - it's a good movie let down by the costuming.

Honestly, since Mad Men became the icon it is, we're able to spot genuine 60's underwear/clothing and vehicles from across a crowded pub. Watching a blockbuster movie screw up like that was...painful. Note: Costumes (ie: yes, the yellow spandex) and military uniforms looked authentic, hell even the TVs and various other fittings managed to comply with the era...but the 90's "avengers" movie would have done a better job for the daywear.

Magneto - ok, watch the movie for him. Micheal Fassbender can act . Perfect lead to Ian McKellen in X-men 1 & 2 (There was no X-men 3. I'm not listening...)
Xavier...uh, after Micheal's scenery-chewing and brooding, James McAvoy was a little...pale in comparison.
Kevin Bacon (as Sebastian Shaw, main villian) Eh, yeah. Hmm. Ok, as a Nazi, he was great. Really menacing, "boys from Brazil" vibe. As a swarmy wannabe despot, he lacked a certain finess.

The rest - ok, the opposing force has colour and style...but could whoever wrote Emma Frost's lines please step away from George Lucas? I think it's catching.

Fast set up, and faster knock-down for "official oversight" for mutants was completed nicely - the 5 seconds of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine was all the movie needed. Too much and it would have looked like a fanboy marysue; you sort of need Mr Jackman for the mancandy factor.

Ratings out of 5:

Pop-culture references 11/5. They've packed more callbacks and nerdery into the movie than effective dialogue or plot...which is sort of saved because the nerdery takes care of the plot nicely.
Action: 3/5 - they could have bloodied it up and actually have a REAL blockbuster on their hands, but they toned it down to a PG and so a lot of the carnage is inferred, weakly, from offscreen. The stuff that's onscreen was handled...poorly.
Visuals: 5/5 - Solid apart from the horrible era-costuming. The mod-squad of superevil mutants looked like James Bond was going to burst in and make a casual quip. Team mutant freedom...eh...they looked like they rolled around in Goodwill and wore what stuck.
SFX: 5/5 Reasonable and apart from the end missile/shell storm, handled with a light touch. CGI can't polish a steamer, no matter how much bloom and lenseflare you use.
Sound: 4/5 Music was quite forced but era-specific, apart from the end credits (catchy). Seriously, "Hippy-Hippy Shake?" In 1962? It was written in 1959...but it only became popular in the US ~ 1963-64 after it was covered by some young up-and-comers known as the Beatles.
Plot 2/5. Workmanlike and skinny, it's a by-the-numbers bluindingromen of three men, only one of whom we really get to feel there is meat on the bones of his story, brooded so well by Herr Fassbender. Professor X is there because for every good antihero there's a whiter shadow and the villian is there because you needed to connect Kevin Bacon to the X-men with less than "7 degrees of seperation".
Sting -10/5. God damn them. No sting. Unless our theatre decided to cut it (possible) but if it's Marvel, there's got to be a sting.

Oh, and a special thanks to the ADD Twat who couldn't shut off her fucking Iphone through the entire movie because checking her email, text and playing Angry Birds was more "iportant".

PS: Watch it for Micheal Fassbender. Whoever the kid was who played young Eric was damn good as well. Young Charles set such a high standard as well, as did young Raven.
PPS: Isn't young Charles the one who did the children's voices for Dragonage: Origins? "Where's my mother, she said she'd be right here" etc?


-Rant mode off, Tir out.

i still can't figure out what kind of continuity the x-men movies are supposedly using . .
everything else is easy enough, black nick fury means it's the ultimate continuity. more or less.

The films are their own continuity, not a direct adaptation of any of the comics.

The "other" Marvel movies are mixing in elements from both the mainstream 616 universe and the Ultimates universe.

So it's not that clear-cut.




-k

Like a friend of mine likes to say:

Because RedShift Alternate Universe X-Men is something ALL new, that's never been done before.


There are SO many alternate universe time line things.. Oy Vey.

Although I find it amusing that Havok (Cyclop's younger brother) was in First Class
But I liked that they had Mystique and Azazael (Nightcrawler's parents)
It was a believable friendship for Magneto and Xavier.. more so actually than the actual comics.

The Real First Class was:
Angel, Beast, Marvel Girl (Jean grey), Cyclops, Iceman.
But I can forgive them, because Banshee was AWESOME.

Well, Havoc having been there in the very first class has been retconned to make room for the "the 4th summers triplet" story line . .

There's a reason Summers Family Tree is a TV Trope.

mainly being that you'd need a way to show something that needs more than 5 dimensions <.<

Edit:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TangledFamilyTree

TV TROPES WILL EAT YOUR LIFE!
Click on Comics, it's mainly summers/x-men/marvel . . DC seems to be a bit more sane in this regard . .

BTW- started collecting X-titles in the 90's (Saw a really cool cartoon..) and became interested in backstory.
Although the Summer's family tree needs a good bulldozing (Not even starting with Nathan and Rachel, but if they bump into a blue police box one day, I called it) a lot of the "origins" were brought up to speed very nicely.

The better half loved the Beast/Mistique origins - Yes, Beast is blue because he was dicking about with his own DNA. Banshee was...eh...comedic flying animal. Havoc was the annoying talking animal. Angel was the flying eyecandy.

Note: their take on Banshee sort of doesn't make Sean Cassidy, Interpol Agent and police-based James Bond very believable.
And was it just me, or was everyone else expecting Beast to be built like a friggin troll after the transformation?
He looked like a nice young man in a blue fur suit. Wearing glasses.

Oh, could they get the actor who played Stryker look any less like the one who played Stryker from Wolverine or X-Men 2? (I liked the shorter version, lots of teh 3vils.)

Jack Nicholson was an unexpected surprise. Haven't seen him in uniform since "A few good men", he wears it well. And was it me, or did the Russians look more...military? Less pretty, more hard-faced.

Oh, and January Jones....ok, she seemed a little too..big..to be Emma Frost (Always had a mental image of a 5'4 mind-melter) Yes, the non-stop fanservice was somewhat distracting (she always seemed a bit more leather than lace) but she lacked a lot of the hard edges Emma had (no, not a diamond joke) and seemed to be more adept at sighing and pouting.


Again - No goddamned sting?! Haaaaaaaaaaaaate.

-Tir

Especially since he wasn't there? Unless I missed something....

You're probably thinking about Michael Ironside.

I was prepared to not like the girl playing Mystique, but she won me over. Emma Frost I didn't care for.

I have been seriously happy with both Mystiques, and not just cause she's hot in blue

Havoc was one of my favorites back in the day. Haven't seen the movie yet, but I'm curious to see what they did with him. Loved the Mutant X comic (definitely not based on the TV show).

Sorry, yes, Micheal Ironside...god, doesn't he look like Nicholson though? (Shining era)
-tir