X-Men: First Class

**X-Men: First Class reset the board and brought new life to a franchise that had lost its way.** After X-Men: The Last Stand and Wolverine Origins, it was clear the X-Men franchise had gone off the rails, but First Class saved the day! First Class tells the origin story of Xavier, Magneto, and the X-Men with a 1960s setting and inexperienced young heroes. These raw and unrefined portrayals of Magneto and Xavier shined the characters in a fascinating new light. The story was engaging and fresh. It felt so new and unique - unlike anything ever seen before with this franchise. All these little-known characters raised the stakes since so many weren’t a part of the original movies leaving their fates unknown and futures unsecured. The 60s style added a cool new aesthetic to the franchise and seeing the beginning of the friendship between Xavier and Magneto with moments of laughter and fun gave the franchise the reboot it needed.

If it's not sacrilegious for a Brit, I found this outing for the "X-Men" to be far better without the presence of the two elderly thespians who usually underpin these adventures. James McCoy takes on the mantle of the younger "Xavier" with Michael Fassbender introducing us to the role of "Erik". The former has the ability to read minds, his friend to manipulate metal. By means of flashbacks, we learn the back story for both of these characters, illustrating how they met and started to work together to ensure that their kind were safe and sound in an increasingly hostile world of human paranoia and suspicion. They are making progress until the re-emergence of "Shaw" (Kevin Bacon). Now he and "Erik" have a past - and the latter blames the other for leading atrocities carried out by the Nazis on his Polish family during WWII. His determination to seek revenge causes a rift between the two friends, and soon they - and their respective followers - are at loggerheads whilst a dangerous nuclear war looms for an humanity caught up in a devious cross-fire. Bacon isn't at his best here, he isn't remotely menacing - but the others, including Jennifer Lawrence's "Raven" and Nicholas Hoult's geeky "Hank" work well to give us quite an action-packed flavour of the birth of "Magneto" and of the foundations of his later hostilities with the "X-Men". The visual effects deliver well and the underlying narrative actually offers us a bit to think about - forgiveness, vengeance, fear and intolerance are all touched upon with a superior script that doesn't entirely rely on the effects and pyrotechnics to make it's point. This film works better on a big screen, these stories never really thrive on the television, and is easily - for my money - the best of the franchise I've yet seen.

My favourite so far. 'X-Men: First Class' is great fun. I felt entertained throughout with nothing bothering me whatsoever, with the score and the cast particularly standing out. I will say it starts stronger than it ends, but that's not to say it isn't all enjoyable because it certainly is. James McAvoy is very good as Charles Xavier, while Michael Fassbender is excellent as Erik Lehnsherr. Rose Byrne, Jennifer Lawrence and Kevin Bacon were three others who I liked watching too. Back to the score, it's tremendous - some parts reminded me of the outstanding theme of television's 'The Crown'. I was feeling the decline across the preceding four releases, but thankfully this regains the series' footing and then some. Intrigued to see where it goes from here. Onwards to 'The Wolverine'*! *watching in release order /copied directly from my Letterboxd review\