X-Men: First Class (2011)

[major_clanger]

I 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 Sebastian Shaw, Kevin Bacon is one of the best Bond villains ever - and that's before you take his superpowers into account. Come to think of it, if Daniel Craig gets bored or falls under a bus, I for one could imagine Michael Fassbender as Bond. As pre-Magneto Erik Lensherr, Fassbender almost seems to be channeling the purist unreconstructed Fleming-style borderline sadist sociopath of the original character. For that matter, there's a scene in a South American bar that bears more than a little imprint of Fassbender's last major vehicle, Inglourious Basterds, as Lensherr walks into a fight we all know is going to end badly for the bad guys.

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?)

There are a few nitpicks, although I think you can probably rationalise them away. Why, for instance, doesn't Young Erik kill Shaw/Schmidt at the start of the film? (Well, other than 'it would have been a rather short film'.) Yes, given what we later find out about Shaw's powers, he probably couldn't have done so, although presumably he wasn't to know this at the time. As it is, you keep on expecting Fassbender to come out with the Inigo Montoya speech - "...and when I meet him, I shall say 'My name is Erik Lensherr. You killed my mother. Prepare to die'" When that confrontation comes, one might also ask why Xavier doesn't release Shaw, although there the answer is a bit clearer: he's caught between keeping Shaw under control - where Lensherr can kill him - and letting him go, probably to blow Cuba off the face of the Earth.

There's also a sight gag that only served to confuse me at the time, and which I didn't get until reading up on the film later. In the scene where Raven/Mystique tries to seduce Lensherr, she responds to his remark about her age by briefly morphing into an older blonde woman. I wondered if this was meant to be Emma Frost, except that it didn't look much like her and there hadn't been any intimation at that point that Lensherr had any feeligns for her - indeed, he'd nearly killed her earlier. It turns out that this was in fact a very brief cameo by Rebecca Romjin, retroactively prefiguring her role as Mystique in the original movies. OK, perhaps I'm not used to seeing her without blue scales... (On that, I liked the way that the film makes a point about how Xavier has been deliberately ignoring the fact that Raven is in fact always naked - like the T-1000 in T2, she fakes the appearance of clothing rather than wearing any.)

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...

Comments

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

I agree with lots of this - indeed my party also commented that Fassbender had just made himself the dead cert choice for next Bond if Craig were to drop down dead tomorrow, and I guessed immediately he was one of the Inglorious Basterds crew, just from the styling - except that the major flaw of the film *was*, I thought, all the Austin Powers bits. I mean, ok, it may be historically accurate (esp for a Bond film) that every woman is a mini skirted temptress but really, fur bikinis? lacy minidresses? white leather catsuits? I expected a groovy baby orgasmatron at any minute. I think a bit of directorial discretion there would, er, really have helped. (Also praps it could ahve been carried off if Emma Frost had been played by someone who could act. I don't watch Mad Men but on the basis of Ms Jones, I do wonder where the fuss is.)

I'm glad you have an explanation for why Charles conveniently held S Shaw firm for Erik to murder him, while SCREAMING (very engagingly I admit) NO NO ERIK DONT DO IT THERE'S NO WAY BACK as that was my other major failure to suspend disbelef. I still think he could just have like shifted his head a few inches to the left!

Overaly I think the central unexpected triumph of this film is the casting: MacAvoy and Fassbender just work together in a way I would never have predicted (M, though always good, has not been remotely such a charmer in the 3 other films I've seen him in - I guess that's yer actual acting for a change) and loads of the young actors (shades of Misfits) also give it their damndest (tho it does seem harsh, as some have pointed out, that considering the source text majors on diversity, the only black character dies first and has the least character..). I also really really hoped they'd have forgotten that whole idea Banshee could fly by screaming and talk at the same time. but ah you can't have everything! I'm now very much looking fwd to the sequel..

oh and re Raven always being naked - yes lovely reaction shot, but why don't blue people have nipples?! Altogether it was a very bluist film actually -- expect LJ protests soon!

[gaspode.livejournal.com]

The thing is about Emma Frost's wearing of the various outfits is that... well those *are* the outfits she wears in the comics (there's a great line in one of Joss Weedon's Astonishing X men where Kitty turns up late to an big meeting at the school, and her response to Emma's comments on it is 'At least I remembered to put some clothes ON !' ... but yeah - they could have found a better choice for her...

[abigailb.livejournal.com]

To be precise, it was the rather more biting "I'm sorry, I was busy remembering to put on all my clothes."

[burntcopper.livejournal.com]

what gaspodex says. pre-late 90s, Emma wandered around in a very small corset or bra, knickers (not even the skirt she wears in the Hellfire Club), a cape, and stilettos or boots depending on the artist. Once the late nineties hit, she was allowed other clothes.

The sixties stuff is pretty much canon.

Banshee talking - i got the impression that he was only talking when gliding - scream, glide a bit, scream some more to keep him going.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

Yes i know but also as gaspodex understands, what is accepted as "comics norm" just looks silly within what is, bizarrely, quite a naturalistic film..

For enough "brand recognition", I'd have dressed her in white, sexy, but not shaggelicious outfits.

[a-cubed.livejournal.com]

The whole ret-con revision of history thing is very true to the original medium of these stories, though, even where the the films themselves are producing yet another variant version. THe easy way is to think of these things as set within minor variations of alternative timelines and try to ignore continuity as much as possible.

[burntcopper.livejournal.com]

re: X3. I wipe that from all continuity as a hallucination as it's so crap. The only bit in that I ever see as canon is the bit where Erik points out that he has a tattoo and he's never getting another one, *thank you*.

Why he didn't kill him - not enough control at that point. Everything was unfocussed - the helmet crushing, the surgery room, etc.

My only main issue was Emma Frost. January Jones just looked... well, she was accurately channelling the standard 60s femme fatale, which would've been fine except the entire point why Emma is so popular is that she's a bitch. She's witty as hell. Where were the one-liners, Jane Goldman?

Sooooo many cool moments in it. And I want most of the clothes.

[davidwake.livejournal.com]

To come back to your point about "new terms", there are issues with on-going continuities that go on and on. Peter Parker has to be a teenager and yet he's been around for - shriek - as long as I have and is still in University. (Hmmm, as of September, so will I be.) If you count the birthdays in The Simpsons, I'm sure there will be issues with Bart, Lisa and Maggie's ages. All need to reboot in some way as they go on, even if it's the Simpsons "let's never mention this again" ploy. It does make continuity and discussing these types of story tricky.

[abigailb.livejournal.com]

Parker (and indeed, the rest of the Marvel universe) aren't aging at normal rates, but he hasn't been a teenager for decades. He graduated from university in Amazing Spider-Man #185 (published in 1978). Recently it appears he is in his late 20s, and he's been trying to act as a kind of mentor figure to younger superheroes. So, that's one way of dealing with it, have time pass, but very slowly...

[davidwake.livejournal.com]

Yes, I suppose there's...

1. Time doesn't pass. (Simpsons.)
2. Time very slowly. (Spiderman as you've pointed out above.)
3. Time passes realistically. (Rebus novels.)
4. Reboot. (Batman regularly.)
5. Fill-in Continuity. (Tell stories within an established history, Doctor Who Missing Adventures.)
6. Senseless. (Who cares about continuity.)
7. Other.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Which reminds me of a gag in the American TV series, Golden Girls, where one of the characters remarks that she hasn't read the long-running soap opera comic strip Mary Worth for 20 years. Another character says, "Let me get you caught up. It's the next day ... "

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Ah, thanks for the explanation of the Raven/Mystique joke, which I didn't understand and vaguely thought was an attempt to meld her own features with Magneto's, implying that he was narcissistic. Or something. Now I get it!