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Men In Black 3

It’s not a sequel that needed to be made, but thanks to the charm of its leads and a tone that harks back to the wit and humour of the original, it’s a pretty enjoyable trip.

Bel Ami

The excellent female support cast saves this patchy effort, which is let down by its leading man and a flat screenplay.

The Dictator

A disappointing, often repulsive and mean-spirited mess of a film with seemingly only one real criterion on its agenda: to shock and offend.

The Woman In Black

Packed with atmosphere, this old-fashioned but deftly told ghost story delivers ample chills and thrills.

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X-Men Origins: First Class (Film)

by Erin Free | May 31, 2011 09:54 | Edited May 31, 2011 09:56

Gripping, intelligent, richly characterised and superbly performed, the latest entry into the comic book cinematic landscape is nothing short of utterly brilliant.

With the success of the warmly regarded Thor, and the hype surrounding the hotly anticipated Green Lantern and Captain America: The First Avenger (not to mention the building excitement about the currently in-production superhero team-up flick, The Avengers), the prequel X-Men: First Class has somehow managed to quietly walk into a crowded comic book cinematic landscape with underdog status. Despite its big budget and the fact that it restarts one of the best superhero franchises of them all, this is the film that has been generating the least buzz and excitement. In one fell swoop, however, X-Men: First Class proves that you don't need to talk it up when what you've got is big enough and brilliant enough to do all the talking for itself.

 

After putting the chargers on the comic book genre with his slicing-dicing-swearing instant classic, Kick-Ass, British director Matthew Vaughn is handed the reins of a far less irreverent property here, and rides it for everything that it's worth, crafting the kind of comic book film that fans dream about: X-Men: First Class is gripping, intelligent, layered, exciting, richly characterised, strongly performed, and sub-texturally profound.        

 

Quickly obliterating any memory of the ham-fisted disappointment of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, this far, far, far superior prequel tracks the early days of X-Men leader Professor Charles Xavier (the perfectly cast James McAvoy) and his friend and later mortal enemy, Erik Lehnsherr alias Magneto (a superb Michael Fassbender, who hits every note in this fascinating character's frightening aria of pain and rage). Set in the sixties, the film takes in the turbulent political climate of the day, as a newly assembled crew of super-powered good guy mutants, including Beast (Nicholas Hoult), Mystique (Winter's Bone Jennifer Lawrence proving why she's been marked for major movie stardom), Banshee (Caleb Landry Jones), Angel (Zoe Kravitz) and Havok (Lucas Till), face off against villainous fellow mutants, Emma Frost (January Jones) and Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon), who plan to use an escalating nuclear crisis as a means to attain mutant world domination. 

 

Like any intelligent director of big budget "event" cinema, Matthew Vaughn has the sense to put his characters first and his action set pieces second. Though they take a while to roll in, the scenes of special effects spectacle mean so much more because we've been given the time to come to know the people involved in them. Having so much dialogue and character-work in a market-appeasing blockbuster is a big risk, but it pays off huge dividends here. So does Vaughn's willingness to push the envelope, with the film's early scenes of Erik Lehnsherr's debasement at the hands of the Nazis - and his initial quest for vengeance - particularly unsettling and confronting. Though never inappropriate, these scenes do navigate darker territory for the X-Men franchise, which had previously only hinted at such violence and emotional cruelty.

 

While strikingly and unapologetically serious in tone (carrying over the original trilogy's allegorical brand of storytelling), X-Men: First Class is never ponderous or self-important. Vaughn includes a number of snappy references and perfectly pitched cameo appearances (the best of which will likely have been cruelly spilled all over the internet by now) that tie proceedings back to the original trilogy in a smart, satisfying, non-intrusive manner. He also sews in a warm romance between charmingly insecure outsiders Beast and Mystique that winningly tempers the action with a little well placed tenderness, and provides just the right amount of light and shade. Make no mistake - X-Men: First Class is not just a terrific comic book movie, it's a terrific movie, full stop.