X-men: First Class (2011– 132 mins) James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence 

The going opinions out there, that I heard, for the X-Men “prequel” of sorts was quite a mixed bag. I don’t really count the whole fan boy opinions b/c no matter what you will have polarizing opinions from them (the usual varrying from the greatest ever to awful, for reasons like too comic-y, bad story, crappy timeline, not true enough to source blah blah). Yet, even from people I trust on these matters. there was the same polarization so I was still quite interested in seeing it. Right away it goes into giving us some back story about the two main characters Professor X and Magneto. The movie makes no bones that it wants us to get two things out of it. First how these two became such good friends yet adversaries (which the trilogy tries to beat us over the head with), and it wants to throw a bunch of characters at us both good and bad and make us care at least a little about them all.

The film does a good job of creating the first initial X-Men and also of making a threat to this super team, by having a super villain team of its own. This team of villains is lead by none other then Kevin Bacon’s Sebastian Shaw. Here in lies the problem I have with the film. I will fully admit, I like Bacon as an actor. He’s good in most everything he is in, MOST. Here he might have delivered a decent performance but I could not take him seriously as a super hero villain AT ALL. It’s such a stretch and so off putting that it’s almost uncomfortable every time he is on the screen. I am not sure why the movie even needed him in it. They did such a great job casting wise with some so so mainstreamers but for the most part lesser knowns. They didn’t need a primo name like Bacon in it anyway. The only other thing I didn’t like about the movie is they try to get every one of the new X-Men their little moment in the sun in the climax and other points in the movie. Sometimes it works out but for a bunch of the characters it’s forced and not very well done. It’s all too obvious that it’s what they are doing and it takes away from the action and the climax that is going on.

These few negatives aside I did have a blast with the movie. It just wasn’t 100% what it could have been. I wouldn’t mind seeing more with these characters b/c hey I am a sucker for super hero ensembles. Jennifer Lawrence is an amazing Mystique, even if the whole idea of them showing her changing sides seems more of a “see how we did that?” moment. I would say if you like fun action movies, or super hero flicks then rent it today.

Verdict–> A real fun movie with a few noticeable flaws but you will still like it anyway. Just try to keep from laughing too hard at Bacon in a movie like this. Top recommendation to grab it from the red box today!

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