![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
X-Men: First Class (2011)
Jun. 12th, 2011 11:27 pmI think we need a new term for works that are somewhere between a true sequel (or prequel) that sits fully within continuity, and a reboot that takes some of the original's situations and characters but starts over. The Incredible Hulk, for instance, is not really a sequel to Ang Lee's Hulk as details of Bruce Banner's background are different, but it nonetheless works as one in that features the same core characters who have experienced in broad, essential terms the events of the first film.
X-Men: First Class is very much in this category in respect of its relationship to the X-Men trilogy (albeit as a prequel rather than sequel). It's not entirely consistent with the existing films, but for the most part the differences are relatively minor, the sort that can be explained by our assuming that a character who describes an event in one way that we later see taking place in another was simplifying or misremembering. True, there are a couple of times in First Class when we can only assume that certain characters forget rather a lot over the subsequent forty years, but it's not as if long-running TV shows with supposedly solid internal consistency haven't pulled the same stunt - Babylon 5 being a particularly egregious example thanks to In The Beginning. The two really glaring continuity issues both related to one scene - the 'twenty years earlier' prologue to X3 - and perhaps the price of accepting First Class as being in the same continuity as the other films is to quietly pretend that scene didn't happen.
So what does First Class give us? The best Sixties spy-thriller aesthetic in a long time, for starters. (I'd say 'since The Incredibles', but that's in a class of its own what with being completely animated.) You know every aspect of Bond-era spy films that the Austin Powers movies mercilessly parodied? First Class reclaims them all and plays them as near to straight as anyone could manage. Indeed, as ( spoilers abound )
Fortuitous timing moment:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
darth_hamster had never been around Oxford until our mini-holiday the other weekend, which was just in time for her to gleefully recognise some of the locations of Charles Xavier's student (and drinking) days. (Genuine Oxonians will be a little confused though by the conversion of the building on the corner in front of the Bridge of Sighs into a pub. Surely he would have been just around the corner in either the Kings Arms or the Turf Tavern?)
( Spoilerly Nitpicks )
So, overall very impressed. It's great fun, well-acted, respects continuity without being a slave to it and manages to be cool and serious at the same time. Also, thanks to the Big Bad, a whole load of young actors now have a Bacon Number of 1...
X-Men: First Class is very much in this category in respect of its relationship to the X-Men trilogy (albeit as a prequel rather than sequel). It's not entirely consistent with the existing films, but for the most part the differences are relatively minor, the sort that can be explained by our assuming that a character who describes an event in one way that we later see taking place in another was simplifying or misremembering. True, there are a couple of times in First Class when we can only assume that certain characters forget rather a lot over the subsequent forty years, but it's not as if long-running TV shows with supposedly solid internal consistency haven't pulled the same stunt - Babylon 5 being a particularly egregious example thanks to In The Beginning. The two really glaring continuity issues both related to one scene - the 'twenty years earlier' prologue to X3 - and perhaps the price of accepting First Class as being in the same continuity as the other films is to quietly pretend that scene didn't happen.
So what does First Class give us? The best Sixties spy-thriller aesthetic in a long time, for starters. (I'd say 'since The Incredibles', but that's in a class of its own what with being completely animated.) You know every aspect of Bond-era spy films that the Austin Powers movies mercilessly parodied? First Class reclaims them all and plays them as near to straight as anyone could manage. Indeed, as ( spoilers abound )
Fortuitous timing moment:
darth_hamster had never been around Oxford until our mini-holiday the other weekend, which was just in time for her to gleefully recognise some of the locations of Charles Xavier's student (and drinking) days. (Genuine Oxonians will be a little confused though by the conversion of the building on the corner in front of the Bridge of Sighs into a pub. Surely he would have been just around the corner in either the Kings Arms or the Turf Tavern?)( Spoilerly Nitpicks )
So, overall very impressed. It's great fun, well-acted, respects continuity without being a slave to it and manages to be cool and serious at the same time. Also, thanks to the Big Bad, a whole load of young actors now have a Bacon Number of 1...
