X-Men: First Class

This week, Evan and I saw a prequel to X-men (no, not that prequel, although I think it gets a bad rap. I enjoyed it, although my tolerance for crap is higher than other people’s). Evan won the preview game three to two, but he got Mr. Popper’s Penguins so fast it makes me think I should add it to our list.

Anyway, the movie opens in the past with a young Erik Lehnsherr in a concentration camp, bending the gates through mutant powers as he’s torn away from his mother. The head of the camp (Shaw) takes an interest in him, but soon figures out the only way for Erik to use his gifts is through anger or pain.

20 or so years later (1962), Erik is busy tracking down every Nazi that’s ever hurt him. Meanwhile, a CIA agent is tracking suspected communists when she surreptitiously witnesses mutants under Shaw’s command convince a very high ranking American Military muckity-muck to install nuclear weapons in Turkey, where they’ll be inside the USSR’s warning system, rendering it useless. Overhearing that mutants are powered by their special genes, she needs a gene theory specialist, and quickly. It’s a good thing Charles Xavier has just gotten his PhD.

She brings him to Langley, where he gives a short lecture on genes and evolution to the senior CIA people, concluding by telling them that mutants may already walk among them. They laugh him off, until his adopted sister Mystique (What? Where the hell did that relationship come from?) shapeshifts into the head of the CIA. The heads promptly lock them up. Or try to – Charles is not a powerful telepath for nothing. He freezes their arresting officer, then takes off with his sister, the CIA agent, and another CIA honcho who was the only person interested in using their powers for good.

They go after Shaw, and while pursuing him, meet up with Erik. Charles invites him to join the team, and a tentative friendship is formed. At the CIA facility, they’re introduced to a primitive Cerebro, and use it to locate many other mutants, whom they invite to join their growing flock.

Action ensues, but I can’t really talk about it without spoiling a whole lot of it, except to say that Shaw is a mutant too. It’s rather important to the plot. Anyway, on with whatever I can talk about.

There’s a lot of cameos, and HITG’s (Hey, it’s that guy!) whom some of you may recognize. James Remar (Raiden in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation), Michael Ironside, Rade Serbedzija (who I recognized from somewhere, but it wasn’t until I got home and checked on IMDB that I found out he had a part right at the beginning of Mission Impossible 2).

The music was serviceable. Some was good (mostly during epic moments) but most of it was forgettable. I didn’t recognize the composer, but that doesn’t really mean much anymore. Transformers was the first time I’d heard of Steve Jablonsky, and it’s awesome (and he’s coming back for the third one. Good times).

There wasn’t a whole lot of action. A tiny bit when Erik and Charles meet while attacking Shaw for the first time. A bit more when the CIA facility they’re staying at is attacked (forcing them to relocate to the mansion seen in the other X-Men movies). And the climax has a lot more.

Despite all that, I liked the movie quite a bit. It was fascinating to find out how they’d weaved together the narrative that’s been in place for all the movies taking place afterwards, and that’s the last time I’ll sound like a film geek, I promise. Honestly, I wanted to find out how they’d fix the plot lines, and where all the mutants came from (and where they’d go. There are a lot of mutants in the movie that don’t show up anywhere else).

Of course, as with any mutant movie, we get some that are kind of lame. A few characters could get into a Least Useful contest with Aquaman. It could have devolved into an Eigen plot, but it didn’t. Still, one character – Banshee – could shout, or whistle, or talk, supersonic screeches. Which seems a bit silly, but they justified it by giving him a webbed suit and having him bounce his screams off the ground to fly. They probably should have just left him out entirely (“We’ve signed a secondary character from Friday Night Lights. What do we do with him?”)

I liked the subplot about acceptance. Should mutants try to look like humans? Should they need to? I imagine that a lot of minorities will feel more empathy with those characters, but anyone who’s tried to fit in can relate.

I didn’t really like the antagonist’s motivations. Conquering the World? Really? It’s been done. Besides, that’s also what Magneto (Erik) wants to do as well. Why are they fighting? Oh right, because Shaw killed Erik’s mom at the beginning of the movie. It’s weird and disconcerting watching a good guy who’s exactly the same as the bad guy.

Anyway, I think it’s a Blu-Ray movie. There’s not enough action, music, or comedy to make it a theatre movie, but I’m so invested in the characters and their stories (and they’re well told stories) that I really wanted to find out what happened. Of course, it did introduce some discontinuity (wait, didn’t Xavier get paralyzed later?) but if you can let that go, you should be fine.