X-Men First Class
Thursday, 2 June 2011 00:10![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prepare4troubleOoooh, X-Men First Class is good. I mean, I was expecting it to be good, but it was so much better than that.
I don't want to launch into a long, rambling five hours or writing that no one is going to read, but I am going to add a few spoilers here, so avert your eyes.
I thought I wasn't going to like this, but it turns out that a young version of Charles Xavier swaggering around the bars of Oxford, drinking ludicrously shaped pints of lager and hitting on girls is actually really funny.
Wolverine!!! Didn't know he was going to be in it. I suppose we weren't supposed to know, it wouldn't be as awesome otherwise. So when Magneto and Professor X are going around recruiting mutants, they walk into a bar, and stand one at each side of Wolverine, introduce themselves, and his response is "Go fuck yourselves," and they just leave. The whole room burst into laughter.
When Xavier is using Cerebro for the first time, and Beast asks if he's sure he can't shave his head, and Xavier is like "Don't touch my hair!" Bwahahahaha.
One thing I don't get, though I like that they're in it, how come Banshee and Moira McTaggert are now American, and why is she a field agent for the CIA?
Also, don't understand why they made it so Mistique lived with Xavier when they were kids. That's such a departure from cannon, and for no good reason. But it didn't harm the story any, and I guess we already know that the moviverse is way different from the comics, so I suppose it's fine. Just a bit random. It does kind of imply though that little Charlie was manipulating his family back then, because I think if your kid turned up with a little blue girl he'd med breaking into the house and told that she could stay forever, you wouldn't ordinarily say "Okie dokie."
This Xavier is more free with the use of his power though, he casually reads the minds of everyone around them, deliberately prying on their most personal thoughts and memories. he blurts things out randomly, outing McCoy as a mutant, and then announcing his academic credentials to the group - why? The saying he was a mutant thing, fair enough, he didn't know it was a secret (or did he, he failed to read that when he read everything else?) but the other stuff. And he casually forces people them to do things against their will, like bombing a boat full of people. Xavier's creepy. Sorry, I've always said it, and everyone always disagreed until fairly recently, but it's apparent here.
Okay, also, that scene near the end where Magneto finally gets to kill Sebastian Shaw? So Magneto has the helmet on, so Xavier can't communicate with him, but Xavier is holding Shaw still, he's like shut him off, so he;s no longer a threat. Through him, he can see what Magneto is doing, and he's screaming uselessly for him to stop but there's nothing he could do. Um... he could release Shaw. If he wanted so badly not to kill him, he didn't have to make him stand there while Erik drove that coin through his brain. Just saying. He totally wanted him dead too, he just wanted to look like he didn't.
Y'know, I wasn't anywhere near as distracted as I thought I would be by the fact that the kid from Skins plays the Beast. He did it really well.
I do love how Magneto's controlling the missiles, fighting Xavier, and when Moira shoots at him and he deflects the bullet into Xavier (ooops) he just drops everything to help him. It's right, because he's going to be the bad guy, but for now he's still Xavier's friend. Trying to strangle Moira though, blaming her, it makes sense too, but probably only to him.
I want more now though. I don't know if there are plans for a sequel to this, another one set between then and now, but it would be insanely awesome. In the meantime, I'll definitely be seeing this again.
That was quite a long ramble, actually.
I don't want to launch into a long, rambling five hours or writing that no one is going to read, but I am going to add a few spoilers here, so avert your eyes.
I thought I wasn't going to like this, but it turns out that a young version of Charles Xavier swaggering around the bars of Oxford, drinking ludicrously shaped pints of lager and hitting on girls is actually really funny.
Wolverine!!! Didn't know he was going to be in it. I suppose we weren't supposed to know, it wouldn't be as awesome otherwise. So when Magneto and Professor X are going around recruiting mutants, they walk into a bar, and stand one at each side of Wolverine, introduce themselves, and his response is "Go fuck yourselves," and they just leave. The whole room burst into laughter.
When Xavier is using Cerebro for the first time, and Beast asks if he's sure he can't shave his head, and Xavier is like "Don't touch my hair!" Bwahahahaha.
One thing I don't get, though I like that they're in it, how come Banshee and Moira McTaggert are now American, and why is she a field agent for the CIA?
Also, don't understand why they made it so Mistique lived with Xavier when they were kids. That's such a departure from cannon, and for no good reason. But it didn't harm the story any, and I guess we already know that the moviverse is way different from the comics, so I suppose it's fine. Just a bit random. It does kind of imply though that little Charlie was manipulating his family back then, because I think if your kid turned up with a little blue girl he'd med breaking into the house and told that she could stay forever, you wouldn't ordinarily say "Okie dokie."
This Xavier is more free with the use of his power though, he casually reads the minds of everyone around them, deliberately prying on their most personal thoughts and memories. he blurts things out randomly, outing McCoy as a mutant, and then announcing his academic credentials to the group - why? The saying he was a mutant thing, fair enough, he didn't know it was a secret (or did he, he failed to read that when he read everything else?) but the other stuff. And he casually forces people them to do things against their will, like bombing a boat full of people. Xavier's creepy. Sorry, I've always said it, and everyone always disagreed until fairly recently, but it's apparent here.
Okay, also, that scene near the end where Magneto finally gets to kill Sebastian Shaw? So Magneto has the helmet on, so Xavier can't communicate with him, but Xavier is holding Shaw still, he's like shut him off, so he;s no longer a threat. Through him, he can see what Magneto is doing, and he's screaming uselessly for him to stop but there's nothing he could do. Um... he could release Shaw. If he wanted so badly not to kill him, he didn't have to make him stand there while Erik drove that coin through his brain. Just saying. He totally wanted him dead too, he just wanted to look like he didn't.
Y'know, I wasn't anywhere near as distracted as I thought I would be by the fact that the kid from Skins plays the Beast. He did it really well.
I do love how Magneto's controlling the missiles, fighting Xavier, and when Moira shoots at him and he deflects the bullet into Xavier (ooops) he just drops everything to help him. It's right, because he's going to be the bad guy, but for now he's still Xavier's friend. Trying to strangle Moira though, blaming her, it makes sense too, but probably only to him.
I want more now though. I don't know if there are plans for a sequel to this, another one set between then and now, but it would be insanely awesome. In the meantime, I'll definitely be seeing this again.
That was quite a long ramble, actually.
no subject
2011-06-02 17:23 (UTC)I haven't read them for years, but I think there was a bit in Ultimate X-Men about how Xavier was subtley twisting the minds of his students, and I'm pretty sure there was a really funny flashback where young!Xavier was full-on brutal to some dude on the beach that kicked sand in his face, so I'm comfortable with the idea of Xavier as a sneaky douche.
no subject
2011-06-02 19:20 (UTC)I vaguely remember that now you mention it, but there was a time when Xavier wasn't really Xavier, I don't know if it was the same time... That flashback sounds awesome though, I don't think I've got that. Want!
I've not read the comics in about four years now, I'd love to get back into them, but it's an expensive habit. I quick peruse of Xaviers Wikipedia entry, and there's a section called 'Dark Xavier' outlining is dodgier dealings, some of which I do remember, so perhaps it's not so much in my head after all. I don't think it was intentional in the film though, that's probably just me over thinking.
no subject
2011-06-02 20:53 (UTC)Maybe it was dark!Xavier, or possessed-by-aliens!Xavier, which I also vaguely remember. Still variously sneaky and hilarious though.
I know what you mean about the prices, when I was thinking about getting back into them I went on Amazon to check some of the collected-volumes prices, and they're seldom if ever under a tenner and there's BILLIONS of them. I might try getting my library to stock them but it's mostly run by elderly Catherine Cookson-loving crones so I'm not optimistic.
no subject
2011-06-03 07:48 (UTC)no subject
2011-06-03 21:42 (UTC)