Xmen First Class

Xmen First Class

Prequels are never easy - most of your audience knows the general gist of what's going to happen, whilst whoever's in the other part obviously haven't bothered familiarising themselves with any of the previous material (in this case: a comic strip, 4 films and several TV spin-offs) so can't be too pushed about the entire enterprise. Unfortunately director Matthew Vaughn appears blistfully unaware of this as he steers a ship on a steady but painfully slow course to an ending we pretty much knew was coming anyway.
He also seems to have forgotten that any comic book adaptation which wants to be successful needs to keep a sense of humour and not take itself too seriously. This, on the other hand, becomes hopelessly weighed down with its own self importance, even to a greater extent than its already preachy X-Men series predecessors (successors??). Its nudge-nudge, wink-wink references to the other films in the series seem clunky and cheesy - note the repeated jokes about Professor X's hair. All this while adhering to most tedious cliche's of the action genre - guess which mutant dies first ? If you said the black one, congratulations, you're in line to direct the next Marvel adaptation.
Of course, there is a plot. The hook on which the character's various storylines are hung concerns (Warning! Blunt Metaphor Alert!) the second World War and, more particularly, the subsequent Cold War. James McEvoy and Michael Fassbender lead the group as Charles "Professor X" Xavier and Erik "Magneto" Lehnsherr but neither covers themselves in glory. McEvoy appears to have been awoken from a deep sleep for his performances, such is the enthusiasm he appears to have for the role. Although he isn't helped by being encumbered by the sort of dialogue which seems to think that every sentence written is the most important in the history of man. Fassbender, on the other hand, seems so confused by his character's upbringing that he can't decide where he wants to place his accent. An interesting support cast includes Jennifer Lawrence (superb in Winter's Bone last year, and amongst the best performers here) as Mystique, January Jones (one day her face will express an emotion, but it doesn't look like it's coming soon) as Emma Frost, Nicholas Hoult (the kid in About a Boy) in Kelsey Grammar's Beast's shoes and Zoe Kravitz (yes, she's his son) as Angel. Most surprising of all, however, is the appearance of Kevin Bacon as the polylingual Sebastian Shaw. Bacon at times seems to relish the role, but it doesn't appear that even he is paying full attention for the duration.
The most unforgivable elements of this effort, however, concern its faithfulness to CGI and its revisionist treatment of its subject matter. The best computer generated executions should go unnoticed, so it is telling that you are never in doubt about the falseness of the CGI scenes in the film. While the insertion of the Cold War narrative may suit the story being told, the inclusion of contemporaneous footage does little to add to proceedings and seems like a ham-fisted plea on behalf of the makers to be taken seriously. However, it is not only historical accuracy which (admittedly, understandably) goes out the window, weren't we told before that it is dangerous for teleporters to transport to places they can't see? We know the rules Mr Vaughn, stop taking us for fools.