"X-Men Origins: First Class" (1 Viewer)

[Brandon Conway]

Originally Posted by mike caronia
One other thing really bothered me a ton...James McAvoy coasting in and out of a pseudo Austin Powers personality throughout the first half of the film...did anyone else find that totally non-Prof X-like?

He's a male in his late twenties. The man deserves to live a little.

 

[TravisR]

As a huge X-Men fan, the liberties taken with the actual history read by fans over the years is so all over the place it wrankles my feathers a bit.

To me, they're two different universes so they can each do their own thing. I can only imagine that Marvel has taken plenty of liberties over the years and they're only dealing with that one universe. On a related note, I've occasionally looked at various X books over the years and I feel like I need a masters degree in X-Menology to even begin to understand the decades of continuity and character relationships. The farther the movies stay away from that potential mess, the better off they are.

 

[Cassy_w]

I loved this film and read the X-Men comic books while growing up. I was an awkward girl and felt a certain kinship with those funny mutants. This movie really nailed what I have always felt the X-men were all about.

And the guy who played Magneto is positively delicious.

 

[Carlo_M]

Some clarifications (at least with regards to my opinions on this). I wouldn't call this the greatest "comic adaptation", but I will say it's one of my favorite "comic book movies."


I get the sense that Mike is considering a "great adaptation" to be as true as possible to an original source, presumably canonical, material. As Travis alludes to, Marvel (and DC, and most other comic book companies who have been around for more than a decade or so) don't really have just one canonical source for their franchises that have survived over a long period of time. They've been reinvented every decade or so in order to reinvigorate interest in the franchise. So I believe the X-Men movies can indeed pick and choose what they want to adapt to screen without feeling like they betrayed the source material. This is in opposition to something like The Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, which have just one source, and deviations outside of that are clearly at a writer/director decision.

Originally Posted by mike caronia

I'm actually a little surprised at how well received this film has been.

As a huge X-Men fan, the liberties taken with the actual history read by fans over the years is so all over the place it wrankles my feathers a bit.

I understand what Singer was doing, but he bastardizes Marvel comics with this current version so much, it saddens me to see so many people calling it 'the greatest comic adapatation ever'. I read the old X-Men books...there's at least 3 different X-era stories going on at once in this film.

One other thing really bothered me a ton...James McAvoy coasting in and out of a pseudo Austin Powers personality throughout the first half of the film...did anyone else find that totally non-Prof X-like?


Movies like Batman Begins or even Iron Man....are far better comic adaptations..

At least from a this comic book fan's perspective.

 

[Malcolm R]

McAvoy was quoted in an article (in Entertainment Weekly, I think) that it was a conscious decision to move Xavier away from the "humorless, sexless" character seen in the prior films.


As Brandon said, he was young and had not yet taken on the burden of leader or schoolmaster. So it seemed appropriate to me (as a non-comic reader) that he was more flirty and carefree.

 

[montrealfilmguy]

I must respectfully disagree with Magneto not being able to control his powers yet.


He is actually able to kill 2 guards and TURN towards the metal lab room and destroy everything just within those limits ?


When he did,it was such a trashing that Linda Blair stood up and said " That's it for me,i'm done"


i' d start to call that precise targeting myself.

 

[Will_B]

I want to give a nod to how the film worked in the concept of hoola hoops, in the way the guy who shot off slicy red energy worked his mojo.

 

[TravisR]

I must respectfully disagree with Magneto not being able to control his powers yet.

I think the difference is that at the beginning of the movie, his power 'explodes' when he's pushed but when he's an adult, he can control and aims his power like a weapon.

 

[cafink]

I thought the HTF would get a kick out of this bit of X-Men casting trivia, from IMDB.

This is the second time that January Jones has been cast in 1962 opposite an actor with a pork based name. The first was in Mad Men opposite John Hamm and then this alongside Kevin Bacon.

 

[Will_B]

That could mean a lucky break for this guy some time soon:


http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0691755/

 

[montrealfilmguy]

But Travis ?


Still does not explain the why of not killing him.


Actually,not having control would mean that he would be able to destroy even more stuff including Shaw.


One buddy of mine implied that Shaw with his power to suppress energy was the one to " stop " Eric from killing him.

That would be a valid observation if his mutant powers were shown in that scene,but they are not.

 

[Will_B]

Here's my guess on why Eric did not kill Shaw at the time:


INTERIOR - WRITERS' ROOM - DAY:

"Hey, should Eric try to kill Shaw now?"

"Nah, let's make Shaw's power a surprise later on"

"Ok. What kind of surprise?"

"Have the FBI agent on the boat say 'you're one of THEM!' in a dramatic way."

"Ok."


There wasn't any more logic to it than that.

 

[TravisR]

But Travis ?


Still does not explain the why of not killing him.


Actually,not having control would mean that he would be able to destroy even more stuff including Shaw.


One buddy of mine implied that Shaw with his power to suppress energy was the one to " stop " Eric from killing him.

That would be a valid observation if his mutant powers were shown in that scene,but they are not.

Like your friend said, Shaw has the ability to manipulate energy so even if Magneto does have enough control of his power to kill him, Shaw is still protected. You don't know that information in that scene but it's given to the audience less than 15 minutes later and they can piece it together if they want to.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Originally Posted by Will_B

But to me, he appeared older when he was working for the Nazis, and younger by several years when he was on the boat.


Yes, he did not age. He also reversed his age a bit.


That was confusing.

Shaw talks about how the "power of the atom" gave birth to the mutants. I suspect his powers didn't take flight until he got some nuclear exposure, and that power made him younger...

 

[BrettGallman]

I think the X-Men movies have all been pretty good adaptations on a thematic level--the kernel of the story has always been there, but I like that "First Class" really embraced being a big comic book movie. Is it still really faithful to the comics, plot-wise? No, but I just see it as another take, not unlike the "Ultimate" universe in the comics, the TV cartoon, etc.

 

[Phoebus]

I find I can only judge comic book movies by what else is around that season, a bit like comic books themselves I guess.


So, after Thor 3D I near vowed not to see another comic book adaptation in the near future. Xmen first class is in a different league to Thor, mercifully, but still a bit odd. The sixties retro was like a breath of fresh air, but the whole felt like three episodes of some tv show or other jammed into the space of 2+ hours with the sense of some abridgement - and three episodes with different themes and agendas to them.. Thus it felt slightly relentless as a whole, too much to cram in the box, perhaps.


fassbender and macavoy were great head to head, with fassbender proving the more erm.. magnetic.. of the leads. Special notices to Crystal Betty, who managed to be more pure-sixties than anybody else!


Special effects were entertaining - the better ones probably being in their realism than their wow factor.


Fun. (roll on the next comic book onslaught..)

 

[Sam Favate]

I was able to see this yesterday. Let me say that when I first heard of this movie, more than a year ago, I was suspicious of it. It sounded like a way to make the proposed Magneto movie more commercial, and with the release date assigned before the movie started production, I doubted it would get made in a timely fashion, or be very good.


I'm glad to say I was wrong. The movie is great, probably the best in the series (only X2 comes close) and one of the best of the genre. Setting it in the early 1960s was a great move - it gives the movie an identity, and sets it apart from every other comic book film, many of which have been popping up on movie screens with increasing regularity since the first X-Men movie in 2000.

My favorite parts of the movie are with Erik as a Nazi hunter. His visit to Argentina might be the best moment in the movie. Michael Fassbender was terrific, as was James McAvoy. I enjoyed the whole cast, really - although Kevin Bacon - who was good - is too recognizable as himself; it takes you out of the movie to see a familiar "movie star" face. I also enjoyed how the script played with X-Men history (though I might liked to have seen the original five members of the team as written by Lee & Kirby). Nice cameo work too. (Wink Wink.)


I've long thought that comic book movies should be period pieces. The creation of certain characters are of a particular era. To me, there is something about Spider-Man that says "Greenwich Village, circa 1966." Likewise, the X-Men and the Fantastic Four call for the Space Age. I also think these characters' stories should be finite, which is not to say they should all die at the end, but rather than see their adventures go on forever (as necessitated by the commercial realities of the comic book industry), there should come a time when they walk off into the sunset. I always thought the X-Men had a pretty good 20- or 25-year run. Taken as a whole, their story from 1963 through the Phoenix storyline (circa 1980) is great; they had a few good years after that, but by the 90s, the cast became so large and the universe so big and convoluted, it was impossible to keep up, IMO. (Of course, I also stopped reading it in the mid-to-late 80s, for the most part.) So many of these tales don't end well, it's nice to see a movie set at the beginning, where optimism and hope are more prevalent than gloom.

Let's see another one with this cast.

 

[MattBradley]

I just watched this movie and did so without having any idea what it was about other than younger versions of the X-Men. I loved it! Reading through this thread, I have to agree that I did not understand why Magneto did not kill Kevin Bacon's character. I wanted him to so bad! When the reveal came that Kevin is a mutant, it caught me by surprise even though I noticed he had not aged. My only complaint is Beast. I was disappointed in how he looked. I have always enjoyed the character and liked how Kelsey looked in X-Men 3. It's not that big of a deal but he had much better looks in the special feature when they were working on his design.