Marvel meets Mad Men: A First Class Review

When I first heard that X-Men: First Class was being made I was more than a bit skeptical. After Origins: Wolverine and Last Stand to say I was a bit down on X-Men movies would be like saying Rebecca Black got a lukewarm reaction.

People started getting riled up about this when production pictures started hitting the net. But that's just stupid. Every superhero movie these days is going to look great in pictures, with the massive budgets thrown into these movies making them look pretty is the least they could do.

It wasn't until I saw the first trailer that I took notice to how unique the visual style of the movie was. Mainly set in 1962 the movie uses the 60's style to some extent, yet at the same time it ups the grittiness of it all by not playing up the era to an Austin Powers type level.

The movie's mood carries itself rather seriously. Kind of like the first X-Men movie, just not as dark. Ironically enough the best way to look at this movie is by comparing it to the AMC show Mad Men, which also stars January Jones (shwing) who plays Emma Frost.

I mostly agree with the cast selections, especially the adult roles. James McAvoy does a good job with Prof. X, but it's obvious that the show stealers are Michael Fassbender as Magneto and Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw. That's right, finally a good outing for X-Men villains. I'm not saying Ian McKellen didn't do a good job in the first three movies, I just think the Magneto character was misused in those movies. In FC, he shows why he is considered one of the most bad ass villains in comic book history.

-Insert MCR meme joke here-

Kevin Bacon does a great job as one of the great, yet underrated villains in the Marvel universe. I can honestly say that every time that Shaw is on screen he really does command a certain amount of fear/respect. The sharp contrast between mutants just learning to control their powers and Shaw, who constantly shocks them with his abilities is very well used to build him up as a villain.

Plus, he does it with style.

 The other characters seem to fall under these three, and with good reason. January Jones, while fun to look at, plays the exact same character as she does in Mad Men. She plays the hot bitchy blonde pretty well.

I also thought that Jennifer Laurence was slightly underutilized as Mystique. She seemed rather prominent at the beginning, just to slowly fade into the background bit by bit. I did like how they switched up her history to pair her up with Xavier. Most die hards might be angry at the switch up, but I believe that Mystique's history is ambiguous enough to make the change believable.

There are other slight changes to the comic book canon. But they are barely noticeable. Yeah, they switch up Havoc and Cyclops' ages, making Havoc older. But really, who cares? It's just a minor detail.

That leads me to one of my slight problems with it. Some of the cast looks way too young. And this is me nitpicking. But if I was in Charles Xavier's shoes, and I was told to assemble a team of mutants to fight a real bunch of badasses. I sure as hell wouldn't chose a bunch of kids like he did. Banshee and Havok looked like fifteen year olds, and they were going up against the likes of Azazel, who looked totally awesome and kicked all sorts of ass.

"I have to fight him?! But I'm only twelve!"

The movie also feels like Mad Men because it ties in directly into a historical event, something that Mad Men has done repeatedly during it's run. But unlike Mad Men, our characters aren't just innocent bystanders to history, they're there as it happens, turning the Cuban Missile Crisis into somewhat of a conspiracy mid movie.

The one thing that really pissed me off about the movie is a certain cameo which I will not spoil for those who haven't seen it yet. It was just unnecessary, which I guess is what makes it a cameo... But it just pissed me off nonetheless.

It is a very new direction for X-Men movies, a fun new direction. First Class is visually appealing and oddly enough, historically intriguing. As rumors for a sequel start to stir I can only say that it is a rare occasion when a movie franchise has two seemingly limitless pools of material from which to draw ideas from. In this case they have both, historical events from the sixties to the present, and the entire X-Men universe. The possibilities are endless, and from what we've seen already, they could be spectacular.

8/10