Movie of the Day – X-Men: First Class

For some unapparent reason today, I have been inundated with images, trailers, posters, and movies for one particular actor, Michael Fassbender.  Now I am not complaining about this as this is a good looking dude.  I am comfortable in my masculinity to say this and with seeing two trailers for upcoming movies, A Dangerous Method and Shame, plus a copy of Jane Eyre sitting on my desk and also having watching Centurion the other night, I can guess it was meant to be that I post a movie today that contained Michael Fassbender.  On a side note about Fassbender, I am totally excited to see him and Carey Mulligan in Shame.

Anyways, while I got my enjoyment out of the Artists today and put out a review in under three hours of seeing it, I am going to take it easy today and bring up a previous review for today’s post.  As you can tell by the title, it is going to be my review of X-Men First Class that gets the Movie of the Day treatment.

I am an unabashed geek/nerd, comic book freak and cinephile, so comic book movies are right up my alley.  There was a lot riding on the film, well to me anyways, since I needed this itteration of the X-Men saga to wash that horrifying taste of Wolverine and X3 out of my mouth.  There was no amount of soda that the Wolverine commemorative 7-11 cup could hold that would drown my sorrow for that movie, but Mathew Vaungh taking the helm as director for the latest X-Men flick gave me hope.  Hope that one day, X-Men and the movie going public could come together in harmony to enjoy a film that showcases the talent of Vaungh and kick-assness of X-Men.

So to tie everything back to the opening statements about Fassbender and my comfortable man crush on the guy, First Class was surprisingly one of my favorite summer films and the best comic book film of the year.  Yeah, I realize it’s a bold statement to make, but this is my blog and I can make statements like that without really having to back it up.  Anyways, so Michael Fassbender plays Magneto or the Erik Lehnsherr and James McAvoy as Charles Xavier, a perfect origin setup and a great action film.  Below is my review of the film when it came out on June 3rd, enjoy and have a good day/night.

Vaughn, in my opinion, captured the overall theme of the X-Men, which is the struggle of the rejects of society.  In every scene, there is some discussion about the co-existence of humans and mutants.  It is what fuels the ending the movie, where both Magneto and Xavier have to confront their individual beliefs and the future of mutant and human kind.  X-Men is about their civil rights struggle.  Not to take anything away from the struggle of Blacks and Gays in society, but that is the essence of the X-Men comics.  They are the dregs of society that no one wants or accepts.  Much like satire is used to comically portray political issues (The Daily Show), X-Men was about the personal struggle of those who aren’t deemed normal.  With Magneto and Xavier, you get two sides of the coin where one believes that human can be understanding and one that feels humans will never accept them.  Xavier shares this belief that since they are gifted with powers beyond that of humans, they must use them for good and gain acceptance.  Magneto, having lived through the Holocaust, knows that humans fear those that are different from them.  He knows what atrocities than can commit in order to remain at the top of the hierarchy.  Both characters represent different belief structures that eventually split them apart….read more