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Unseen Movie Review: X-Men: First Class

By Rob Dixter Jun 1, 2011, 19:01 GMT

The origin story of the "X-Men" franchise focusing on Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr as young men before they became Professor X and Magneto respectively. ...more

Successful franchises are double edged swords to Hollywood studios. They want them more than Nic Cage wants a new hairline, but once you get a money making franchise the participants all want (rightfully so) more money to keep it going.

How do you run a box office franchise in Hollywood? By getting rid of all non essential personnel. Spider-Man lost Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst and rebooted the franchise, Pirates of the Caribbean got rid of Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley (because Johnny Depp is more important to that series than Viagra to Hugh Hefner) and now X-Men got rid of everybody.

In comic book films, studios have always maintained that the star is the content. Iit’s the superhero that matters and not the actor wearing the tights. X-Men had produced three films with some major names attached, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Ian McKellen, to produce a fourth with that cast would have required a loan from Warren Buffet.

So what do you do? You can either throw in the towel or take it back in time with a prequel and sign up new actors who won’t force you to mortgage your third vacation home to pay for them.

X-Men: First Class opens Friday with some new blood but one important point is that producers from the original trilogy are still on board. This helps to preserve ties to the first three as well as hopefully guide this one to the same success the others had.

Bryan Singer (who also directed the first two X-Men) and Laura Shuler Donner are back to produce First Class, and by produce I mean get first crack at the craft services table. Really, what does a Hollywood producer actually do? Their job is more nondescript than that guy who dances on stage during Mighty Mighty Bosstones concerts.

The key to this new movie and every comic book film is to cast decent actors in the roles. Even though you’re basing the content off of a 20 page magazine that kids read under the covers with a flashlight, the acting has to be top notch and believable.

Putting James McAvoy in the role of Charles Xavier is perfect casting. He’s dependable, believable, and can carry an over the top action movie (see Wanted). James seems like the guy who throughout his whole life has taken everything seriously, whether it was exams in school or getting his first wedgie.

The real star of X-Men: First Class is the director, Matthew Vaughn. He recently did Kick Ass and is married to Claudia Schiffer, and you thought supermodels weren’t into comic geeks.

Kick Ass proved he has the perfect sensibility for a comic book movie, but check out Layer Cake his first directorial effort. Vaughn owns that movie like Nick Nolte does 12 year old whiskey. He has complete control over that film and delivers on all fronts. The performances (which led Daniel Craig to get James Bond) are fantastic, but so is the pacing and drama of the movie.

The X-Men trilogy was really good, but let’s be honest, it peaked with the second one. Once Brett Ratner got a hold of the third one he sucked the personality out of it faster than Monica Lewinsky at a White House intern reunion. As good as Vaughn’s record is he really can only improve on the last one.

I’m not too excited that they’re basing the story on a bunch of kids, although I do understand that the comic was always based at Xavier’s school. I think it’s great that they did not give up on the X-men and have figured out a way to make a new affordable movie. But the only thing the online community will be talking about this weekend in reference to First Class is wondering who the father of January Jones’ baby is.

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