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X-Men: First Class is basically Marvel's way of apologizing for letting Brett Rattner do X-Men: The Last Stand. I have been waiting for that apology since I saw that goddamned thing opening night, and I have to say: TOTALLY WORTH IT.
* Same main problem everyone else did: Black Guy Dies First and Black Woman Goes Evil. No points, guys.
* Three questions plagued me for most of the movie:
1) Why make Sebastian Shaw the main villain?
2) Why make Sebastian Shaw a Nazi?
3) Why make Kevin Bacon Sebastian Shaw?
(Realistically, you need to make Shaw the villain because Magneto's not, and...yeah, I got nothin' re: Nazis.)
Kevin Bacon, though, was actually really good at conveying the sense of menace we're supposed to get from Shaw - though Shaw isn't so much "yay mutants!" as "yay the Hellfire Club!"
* The 1960s Hellfire Club as a tarted-up Playboy Club: AWESOME. Though it loses something from the fact that no one here is dressed up in pompous outfits and calling each other "Black King" and "White Queen".
* I did not hate January Jones as Emma Frost! I didn't...have much of an opinion of her, frankly, but the whole "ugh, I hate everything" face she makes when she's whammying the Russian general into thinking they're fooling around is great. She actually does Emma's whole early Claremont "bored now" thing really well, though the later Emma - you know, when she had character development - would be better served by recasting. Also, for real: Emma Frost in the comics has worn stupider outfits than she did in the movie. Come on.
* I got through "Sean Cassidy as an American teenager" and "Alex Summers is now LIKE THIRTY YEARS OLDER THAN SCOTT" by reminding myself that this is, essentially, a Marvel Elseworlds, and not so much trilogy/Wolverine: Origins compliant. It still burns, but it's manageable.
* I did not actually recogize that that was Jason Flemying as Azazel, and wouldn't have known if I hadn't known it going in.
* Aaaaaand now that we've seen Riptide, I'm trying to imagine who the fuck you would cast as the other Marauders. (Besides Tyler Mane as Sabretooth, because while I like Liev Schrieber, I think Mane plays better.) Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Scalphunter seems a little too on the nose, and Arclight is fucking baffling the shit out of me. And Scrambler? Who the hell would be Scrambler? AGH MY BRAIN.
* Henry Jackman needs all the credit in the world for an amazing musical score.
* Nicholas Hoult is really, really good, you guys. Fun fact: I have always thought Hank McCoy hottest since he started his secondary mutation and became more cat-like. I don't...I don't get the same "eventually I will turn into Kelsey Grammer" thing from him as I did later with McAvoy and Fassbender, but that might be because adult!Hank only really works for me as the dude testifying before Congress; in the fight scenes, I was like, "Really?" Admittedly, this could be because that last movie SUCKED OUT LOUD.
* I don't have any real opinion of Rose Byrne, though I like her, generally, better than the characters she plays. BUT! Moira MacTaggart as a CIA agent would totally take off her dress on three seconds' notice to infiltrate the Hellfire Club, and that is awesome.
* Oliver Platt is made of win and ponies. He's so excited to meet mutants, you guys! As I would be! Because mutants are wonderful!
* I knew Brendan Fehr was gonna be on the sub, but no one warned me for Michael Ironside. FIRED.
* Matthew Vaughn actually did something even Bryan Singer was never able to pull off: he made the whole thing work. I don't know if it's the era or what, but the blue-and-yellow suits, two people fighting while flying, the whole thing - I believed this was a world where people have superpowers and that a group of mutants that fights for a world that hates and fears them protects them anyway. It's my favorite non-Erik/Charles thing in the whole movie, actually.
(I think Singer did a good job adapting them for modern-day, but the black leather suits never really worked for me, and just. I don't know. It was like a 75%, while this was a 98%, you know? We will not speak of Brett Rattner, mostly because the entire world owes him facepunches like he's M. Night.)
* I--okay, you know how you make the joke that you knew this movie was gay, but then you saw it and it was super-gay? Yeah, that's not a joke. THAT'S THE MOVIE THEY MADE.
It's not even so much the writer straight-up on Facebook answering comments with "um, no, I totally wrote this as a gay allegory, just like Joss did with the cure storyline", but--okay, how. That. The thing in the gentleman's club, when Erik's like "tip you off, vicar?" and they're drinking out of martini glasses, that. You know what? Bros don't do that. Bros in the SIXTIES did not do that shit. You know who did shit like that? GUYS WHO WERE EYEFUCKING. And then, oh God, the thing on the beach? When Erik's tenderly cradling Charles and telling him "I want you by my side"? I. That. I literally sat in the theater gaping, because holy shit. Dear internet: I totally get it now, mea culpa, Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen are gonna make me cry the next time I watch X2, OH GOD THEY ARE SOULMATES AND THEY CANNOT BE TOGETHER, I HATE EVERYTHING, et cetera, et cetera.
P.S.: You know how, in all the fan art that's come out, there's a lot of perfect crystal tears? AGAIN, NOT A JOKE. Jesus Christ this movie is weepy. But in a really, really great way.
* JAMES MCAVOY LET'S YOU AND ME HAVE A TALK. I was really pissed you made me not hate Mr. Tumnus in the Narnia movies, because Mr. Tumnus is actually extremely fucking creepy. I actually am going to watch Wanted later because of you - a movie that, at the time, I hated sight unseen, because a) it's based on a Mark Millar book and b) they changed, like, literally 2/3 of it, which makes the comic book nerd in me cry tears of blood. I do not have high expectations, but whatever, I am watching it. I am now legitimately pissed I missed The Conspirator in theaters, because it was within half an hour's driving distance and you had muttonchops and a Southern accent and OH MY GOD YOUR FACE, FOR REAL.
BUT. Now I cannot help but think of Charles Francis Xavier - Professor X! - not as a learned, soothing presence a la Patrick Stewart, but a guy who looks like you and has chat-up lines for chicks in bars and uses the word "groovy" unironically and can really pound some beers, and I do not know what to do with that, sir. I could kick you in the knee just for that.
* MICHAEL FASSBENDER I TOTALLY GET IT NOW OKAY. You made me feel bad for Magneto - FOR MAGNETO - and you look like fucking ten million dollars all the goddamn time even in a stupid sweatsuit, and just. He was hopeful, you guys! He was willing to try it Charles' way, but in the end he thought Shaw was more right than he was wrong; it's just that Shaw killed his mother, and that guy holds grudges like they're pets. We save ourselves, or we remain unsaved, and sometimes...sometimes we don't save ourselves.
In other words, when I walk out of the theater really wanting a "MAGNETO WAS RIGHT" shirt, you have done your job.
* (For the record, as an X-Man fan since I was three, I'm part of the group that thinks a 180 in either way is ridiculous is stupid when a 90-degree in the middle is the right way to go. Charles tends to go for acceptance, or just equal rights, but he's willing to back off as long as they're not persecuted; Erik tends to go waaaaay over the top and immediately want to start killing humans for being inferior. The world of the Marvel Universe would be a much different place if they'd stayed together.
Also, I would watch THAT movie - where The Avengers and the X-Men, with Magneto, team up to take down Kang and Belasco or something equally ridiculous and amazing, directed by Matthew Vaughn and script by Joss Whedon and Jon Favreau - eleven million fucking times. Pepper would be really cool with Tony occasionally eyefucking Steve Rogers, and Thor is reunited with Jane Foster, and Loki gets seven billion hugs and he and Sif end up together like some weird Asgardian Scott Free/Big Barda, and Gambit shows up in time to "save" Rogue, who promptly saves him from getting killed by S'ym, and Kitty Pryde befriends her ex-boyfriend Piotr's little sister Illyana and meets a British Black Ops agent named Pete Wisdom and OKAY I NEED TO STOP RIGHT NOW.)
Basically, this totally redeems the franchise for me, and I want to see it three more times RIGHT NOW.
* Same main problem everyone else did: Black Guy Dies First and Black Woman Goes Evil. No points, guys.
* Three questions plagued me for most of the movie:
1) Why make Sebastian Shaw the main villain?
2) Why make Sebastian Shaw a Nazi?
3) Why make Kevin Bacon Sebastian Shaw?
(Realistically, you need to make Shaw the villain because Magneto's not, and...yeah, I got nothin' re: Nazis.)
Kevin Bacon, though, was actually really good at conveying the sense of menace we're supposed to get from Shaw - though Shaw isn't so much "yay mutants!" as "yay the Hellfire Club!"
* The 1960s Hellfire Club as a tarted-up Playboy Club: AWESOME. Though it loses something from the fact that no one here is dressed up in pompous outfits and calling each other "Black King" and "White Queen".
* I did not hate January Jones as Emma Frost! I didn't...have much of an opinion of her, frankly, but the whole "ugh, I hate everything" face she makes when she's whammying the Russian general into thinking they're fooling around is great. She actually does Emma's whole early Claremont "bored now" thing really well, though the later Emma - you know, when she had character development - would be better served by recasting. Also, for real: Emma Frost in the comics has worn stupider outfits than she did in the movie. Come on.
* I got through "Sean Cassidy as an American teenager" and "Alex Summers is now LIKE THIRTY YEARS OLDER THAN SCOTT" by reminding myself that this is, essentially, a Marvel Elseworlds, and not so much trilogy/Wolverine: Origins compliant. It still burns, but it's manageable.
* I did not actually recogize that that was Jason Flemying as Azazel, and wouldn't have known if I hadn't known it going in.
* Aaaaaand now that we've seen Riptide, I'm trying to imagine who the fuck you would cast as the other Marauders. (Besides Tyler Mane as Sabretooth, because while I like Liev Schrieber, I think Mane plays better.) Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Scalphunter seems a little too on the nose, and Arclight is fucking baffling the shit out of me. And Scrambler? Who the hell would be Scrambler? AGH MY BRAIN.
* Henry Jackman needs all the credit in the world for an amazing musical score.
* Nicholas Hoult is really, really good, you guys. Fun fact: I have always thought Hank McCoy hottest since he started his secondary mutation and became more cat-like. I don't...I don't get the same "eventually I will turn into Kelsey Grammer" thing from him as I did later with McAvoy and Fassbender, but that might be because adult!Hank only really works for me as the dude testifying before Congress; in the fight scenes, I was like, "Really?" Admittedly, this could be because that last movie SUCKED OUT LOUD.
* I don't have any real opinion of Rose Byrne, though I like her, generally, better than the characters she plays. BUT! Moira MacTaggart as a CIA agent would totally take off her dress on three seconds' notice to infiltrate the Hellfire Club, and that is awesome.
* Oliver Platt is made of win and ponies. He's so excited to meet mutants, you guys! As I would be! Because mutants are wonderful!
* I knew Brendan Fehr was gonna be on the sub, but no one warned me for Michael Ironside. FIRED.
* Matthew Vaughn actually did something even Bryan Singer was never able to pull off: he made the whole thing work. I don't know if it's the era or what, but the blue-and-yellow suits, two people fighting while flying, the whole thing - I believed this was a world where people have superpowers and that a group of mutants that fights for a world that hates and fears them protects them anyway. It's my favorite non-Erik/Charles thing in the whole movie, actually.
(I think Singer did a good job adapting them for modern-day, but the black leather suits never really worked for me, and just. I don't know. It was like a 75%, while this was a 98%, you know? We will not speak of Brett Rattner, mostly because the entire world owes him facepunches like he's M. Night.)
* I--okay, you know how you make the joke that you knew this movie was gay, but then you saw it and it was super-gay? Yeah, that's not a joke. THAT'S THE MOVIE THEY MADE.
It's not even so much the writer straight-up on Facebook answering comments with "um, no, I totally wrote this as a gay allegory, just like Joss did with the cure storyline", but--okay, how. That. The thing in the gentleman's club, when Erik's like "tip you off, vicar?" and they're drinking out of martini glasses, that. You know what? Bros don't do that. Bros in the SIXTIES did not do that shit. You know who did shit like that? GUYS WHO WERE EYEFUCKING. And then, oh God, the thing on the beach? When Erik's tenderly cradling Charles and telling him "I want you by my side"? I. That. I literally sat in the theater gaping, because holy shit. Dear internet: I totally get it now, mea culpa, Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen are gonna make me cry the next time I watch X2, OH GOD THEY ARE SOULMATES AND THEY CANNOT BE TOGETHER, I HATE EVERYTHING, et cetera, et cetera.
P.S.: You know how, in all the fan art that's come out, there's a lot of perfect crystal tears? AGAIN, NOT A JOKE. Jesus Christ this movie is weepy. But in a really, really great way.
* JAMES MCAVOY LET'S YOU AND ME HAVE A TALK. I was really pissed you made me not hate Mr. Tumnus in the Narnia movies, because Mr. Tumnus is actually extremely fucking creepy. I actually am going to watch Wanted later because of you - a movie that, at the time, I hated sight unseen, because a) it's based on a Mark Millar book and b) they changed, like, literally 2/3 of it, which makes the comic book nerd in me cry tears of blood. I do not have high expectations, but whatever, I am watching it. I am now legitimately pissed I missed The Conspirator in theaters, because it was within half an hour's driving distance and you had muttonchops and a Southern accent and OH MY GOD YOUR FACE, FOR REAL.
BUT. Now I cannot help but think of Charles Francis Xavier - Professor X! - not as a learned, soothing presence a la Patrick Stewart, but a guy who looks like you and has chat-up lines for chicks in bars and uses the word "groovy" unironically and can really pound some beers, and I do not know what to do with that, sir. I could kick you in the knee just for that.
* MICHAEL FASSBENDER I TOTALLY GET IT NOW OKAY. You made me feel bad for Magneto - FOR MAGNETO - and you look like fucking ten million dollars all the goddamn time even in a stupid sweatsuit, and just. He was hopeful, you guys! He was willing to try it Charles' way, but in the end he thought Shaw was more right than he was wrong; it's just that Shaw killed his mother, and that guy holds grudges like they're pets. We save ourselves, or we remain unsaved, and sometimes...sometimes we don't save ourselves.
In other words, when I walk out of the theater really wanting a "MAGNETO WAS RIGHT" shirt, you have done your job.
* (For the record, as an X-Man fan since I was three, I'm part of the group that thinks a 180 in either way is ridiculous is stupid when a 90-degree in the middle is the right way to go. Charles tends to go for acceptance, or just equal rights, but he's willing to back off as long as they're not persecuted; Erik tends to go waaaaay over the top and immediately want to start killing humans for being inferior. The world of the Marvel Universe would be a much different place if they'd stayed together.
Also, I would watch THAT movie - where The Avengers and the X-Men, with Magneto, team up to take down Kang and Belasco or something equally ridiculous and amazing, directed by Matthew Vaughn and script by Joss Whedon and Jon Favreau - eleven million fucking times. Pepper would be really cool with Tony occasionally eyefucking Steve Rogers, and Thor is reunited with Jane Foster, and Loki gets seven billion hugs and he and Sif end up together like some weird Asgardian Scott Free/Big Barda, and Gambit shows up in time to "save" Rogue, who promptly saves him from getting killed by S'ym, and Kitty Pryde befriends her ex-boyfriend Piotr's little sister Illyana and meets a British Black Ops agent named Pete Wisdom and OKAY I NEED TO STOP RIGHT NOW.)
Basically, this totally redeems the franchise for me, and I want to see it three more times RIGHT NOW.
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Oh, I think Nicholas Hoult did a fabulous job. And come ON Dr McCoy, you and Raven are so PRETTY blue.
And - *frowns* who WOULD play Scalphunter? Oh crap, and now I am thinking of the Morlocks - and you know, the Massacre, and Marrow, and - *makes flaily hands*
Nobody told me Michael from Roswell was going to be in this but I will admit to a loud squeal and pointing. *facepalms*
Srsly, the Erik and Xavier estrangement is one of those things where the world is SO SO much worse off. Come on, people, if you get these two together, imagine what they can DO. But, I mean, even when they're not on the same page, they're one that the other does go to/trust, because - it's THEM.