X-Men: First Class

The Flick: X-Men: First Class

The Actors: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbinder, Kevin Bacon, Jennifer Lawrence, Rose Byrne, Oliver Platt, Zoe Kravitz, Nicholas Hoult, January Jones, etc.

The Dealio: Although it would probably give the entire creative crew the peadoodles for me to say this, that's a risk I am willing to take: this is an origins movie. By and large, it does a really grand job of giving the run-up stories of all the major players in the X-Men series. Charles Xavier starts a school for those- like himself- who are 'differently gifted'. In other words, mutants or those who have extremely highly developed talents, like reading minds, flying, using mind-power to move/control things, or- my personal favorite- the ability to spit napalm lougies. The non-mutant others- the world over, it seems- are both intrigued and frightened by the mutants and are undecided about whether to harness their talents for the good of all mankind...or hunt them out of existence. Of course, you just gotta know there is also a cadre of bad hats who would love nothing more than to convert the mutants into a personal evil delivery system. Therein lies the tale.

The Grading Session: 4.38 pengies out of 5. A couple of notes: definite style points for the inclusion of both Wolverine (funny, dude!), and Rebecca Romijn (in a fast-forward to the future, adult Mystique) in this movie. But then I have to deduct a few style points for the fact that Lawrence looked very Muppets-meet-Smurfs- and obviously wearing whatever the high tech version of long johns is-during her transformation into young Mystique. I also did not buy the instant friendship and deep devotion between Erik and Xavier. It seemed to speak to either great gullibility on the part of Xavier or short-cutting their friendship's development on the screen.

Lessons Learned: Oh, so many. Where to begin? Well, first of all, my data base for Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon has just exploded. Almost makes the game far too cinchy. Also- on a related topic, if any character played by Bacon offers you chocolate, in any language...run! Next: January Jones has finally found her acting niche: lobotmised 60's Stepford wives, fembots and emote-free mutants. These are her peeps. Lastly, this: the bad mutant-team always gets the mutants with the best powers (please see napalm-loughie-spit, vaporising the enemy and rapid transit...without the need for a vehicle). Having feet like hands just is not a match for all of the other fire-power.