There’s much to admire about X-Men: First Class, a combination reboot and prequel for a three-film mutant-superhero series that peaked with its rousing second entry, then hit the wall in a by-the-numbers adventure that languished between workmanlike and perfunctory. Yet it’s not the artistry of X-Men: First Class that’s particularly striking; though it’s finely crafted, the film feels less the product of a visionary director than of the Marvel movies machine working at maximum efficiency.
What’s really awe-inspiring about X-Men: First Class is akin to what’s startling about watching a sideshow strongman lift a refrigerator over his head. Just re-energizing a moribund franchise would be enough of a burden, but director Matthew Vaughn and his battery of screenwriters have also been tasked with rebuilding the entire X-Men universe from scratch.
Origin stories can be deadly — we’re looking at you, Star Wars prequels — because they’re about setup more than follow-through. By that measure, X-Men seems especially perilous, given its many dozens of specialized mutants and the convoluted allegiances and rivalries among them.
It’s a headache just to consider the logistics of squeezing all that business into one movie, but the small miracle of X-Men: First Class is that it pulls off this herculean feat without breaking a sweat. Rather than feeling hampered by the need to introduce the likes of Magneto and Professor X to an audience that knows them through three previous blockbusters — to say nothing of comics, video games, action figures and other ancillary products — the filmmakers seem to have seized the opportunity to start fresh with a new cast and a cleaner, stronger mythology.
Harnessing a wealth of pulpy energy from real human events, X-Men: First Class cleverly incorporates the X-Men into a shadow history of the Cold War and the Cuban missile crisis. But first, it turns to the ultimate pulp villains — Nazis — to raise the stakes all the more. Flashing back to Auschwitz, it recaps the tale of young Erik Lensherr, who discovers the powers that will later transform him into Magneto when Nazi doctor Sebastian Shaw, played delectably by Kevin Bacon, guns down his mother. From that moment on, Erik’s anger and impulsiveness will contrast starkly with his future friend and eventual nemesis Charles Xavier, aka Professor X, who manages his telepathic powers with intelligence and restraint. (Sometimes to a fault.)