I was always sort of a fan of the X-Men comic books. I found the idea of being a mutant very... interesting to say the least. I started following them during my high school days but never really got into "cult" status. I merely knew the central characters, most of their powers, and a bit of their back stories. It also helped that during those times, there were local versions of trading cards of Marvel Superheroes circulating in the kids' world, and me and my friends collected the cards.
And so, when the first X-Men flick came out, I was actually kind of... disappointed. Here were some of my favorite Marvel characters (I always held Spider-Man in high regard) and Hollywood was... Hollywoodifying them! Halle Berry as Storm?!? A Wolverine that stood past 5'3? A Jean Grey who wasn't as pretty as the one in the comics?!? Blasphemy (and here I was saying I wasn't a fanboy). The only good casting I saw from the first films (I am sure that girls who are completely going gaga over Hugh Jackman would disagree) were the ones of Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (Sir Ian McKellen). These two actors were perfect fits for the characters that they portrayed (though I personally figured Magneto to be a bit younger and more... fit)
It was thus kind of fitting that the latest installment in the series of X-Men, a prequel of sorts to all the X-Men films, was about the two characters who were cast right. The movie takes the origin story of the X-Men themselves (after Hollywood yet again botched the origin story of Jackman's character Wolverine) where a young Charles Xavier (James McAvoy), who took in Raven Darkholme (Jeniffer Lawrence) when they were both kids helps out Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne) of the CIA in trying to catch Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) and his group, the Hellfire Club. Their group runs into Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender), a survivor of the Holocaust who was bent on killing Shaw himself. They run into trouble and decide to recruit people born with special abilities, to form a group that would go after Shaw and his own team, among whom is the lingerie-wearing Emma Frost (January Jones). This adventure marks the discovery by the rest of the world of a new kind of human being - one endowed with powers that normally would be impossible to have. All this is set with the backdrop of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
At the heart of the film is the friendship that is formed between Xavier and Lehnsherr, one that would go on for years, despite their being in separate sides of the spectrum on one specific topic - the role of mutantkind on Earth. The bond between rivals is strong in this movie, a theme that follows the Unbreakable formula, is the source of their growth as individuals and the rift between them and their philosophies about a future with humans.
And McAvoy and Fassbender pulled this off quite well. It was, for me who isn't really that well-versed in X-Men lore, to see Xavier as a happy-go-lucky guy, and not the same character that he's been known to be in the comics and the three X-Men flicks. I mean, who would have guessed that the bald wheelchair-bound guy with a serious tone to his British accent was once picking girls up using his telepathic and mind-reading powers? It was also good for non-comic fans to see where Magneto's angst towards humankind really comes from. The addition of Shaw into that angst just added to yet another tie-in. McAvoy's transformation from picking up girls to serious professor was really effective. And his teaching moments, which would define who Professor X would be in the future, were done really well. Fassbender on the other hand, gave what I would say was the performance of the whole movie. His gravity throughout the story played really well and made the mental image that Charles found - the one he used to command the radar to turn - even more touching. He played the angst because he wanted to avenge the loss of his love for his own mother really well.
I also personally liked Bacon's acting for this one. While Sebastian Shaw is depicted in the comics as a buff bruiser who used his power to absorb energy and use it to power himself up, Bacon's Shaw was a more subdued "cool cucumber" character. This worked pretty well, as Shaw then became a more calculating enemy with an ace up his sleeve (his power).
This did not work well, however, for Jones' Emma Frost. While I won't be the first one to complain about seeing the White Queen (as her character is known in the comics), Jones was too, "frosty" (pun intended). Add that to the sultry slow walk that Jones added to her character and one might even fall asleep just watching her. The most animated her character got was when it wasn't even really her, as she projected a mental image of herself to flirt with the Russian general. Now, maybe she was directed that way, but it just wasn't striking enough. I would imagine another actress with a better timbre in voice and more alluring eyes (Jones' eyes were pretty nonetheless) would have given us a stronger character than Jones showed. She looked the part, she just didn't quite feel like it.
The rest of the ensemble were pretty okay. The sequence on how the young mutants were starting to learn about their powers (Banshee falling off a window and Beast learning to let go of his inhibitions) was a cool montage.
But the movie had its bad parts also. Because of the prevalently calm tone of most of the focal characters, the movie was bordering on being almost boring. Not even the costumes of Jones, who was in most of the scenes, helped in that sense.
Another bad part of the film were the repetitive line throwing of some pretty cheesy lines. While the whole "Mutant and proud" tagline was nice at the start, having Raven repeat it time and again cheapened the effect for me. My mind blocked the other cheesy lines because I wanted to remember the film in a good light.
All in all, I still think that the film was pretty good. It served its purpose to provide the right back story to the rivalry between Professor X and Magneto, and even the hostility the humans had for mutants. Erik's role in the crippling of Charles only made this connection even greater.
The film, for me, served its purpose: to provide a good back story, and entertain the watchers while doing so. I would give it four DNA strands out of five.
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