Movie Review: X-Men First Class

I just got home from watching X-Men First Class and I LOVED IT!  But to be fair, I can't say I'm really all that impartial because I love all the X-Movies, even the third one that all the movie snobs say was horrible, trite, predictable, silly, blah blah blah.  SO WHAT if at the end, when Dr. Jean Gray was totally freaking out with her crazy mind power so much that only Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) could get near her, and her power was so intense that it kept blowing off his shirt and his chest flesh (but not his pants)?  It's called DRAMA, people!  Wolverine loved her, but had to kill her to save the world, but he loved her, but the world depended on him.  But he loved her.  DON'T YOU GET IT!  IT WAS A TOUGH DECISION!  It plunged further into the murky depths that make up Wolverine.  How anyone could sit through that without shedding a tear, I will never know.

That all being said, this X-Men was fabulous!  And part of the reason I am saying that is because I am newly in love with Michael Fassbender who played Magneto, who also played Mr. Rochester in this year's movie version of Jane Eyre.  I went to see that movie a few weeks ago at the new hipster theater downtown and the tiny theater was packed full of people, most of whom probably remember when the book came out.  They were OLD.  I think it might have been a nursing-home field trip.  Anyway, I also LOVED Jane Eyre (because I think I might love every movie) and Mr. Rochester was soooooo wonderful.  Crazy, lovable weirdo.  Mitch calls Jane Eyre "19th century pulp fiction" so he wouldn't go see it with me.  Apparently the Bronte sisters were the 19th century version of Danielle Steel (according to Mitch; crazy, lovable weirdo!)

The movie starts with the same scene that starts the very first X-Men movie.  Magneto is a teenager, in Germany, in 1944, and he and his family have been taken to a concentration camp where he was separated from his parents and he can't stand it and he is calling out and trying to get to them, and in the process bends a gigantic metal fence with his unharnessed power.  I know that's what happened because I've seen that scene a million times.  However, I did not really see it this time because some lady came down my aisle (which is always up at the top so I can avoid this very problem) and needed to get past me.  OF COURSE!  There are hundreds of open seats all over the place, but you have to sit in MY row, in a seat on the other side of me, during the first scene of the movie!  So I missed the big fence-bending because I was looking at this lady's ass and she was stepping on my feet, but I got the idea.

Shortly after that the movie jumps ahead in time 22 years to 1962.*  Magneto is trying to avenge his parents, and Dr. Charles Xavier has just gotten his degree from Oxford.  Blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda, they get together and prevent the Cuban Missile Crisis from turning into a nuclear war.  (Oh, sorry.  Spoiler alert.)  Sam was watching it too with some of his friends and I take great comfort in the fact that this is now and forever going to be the first and therefore most credible version of the Cuban Missile Crisis that they ever learn.  (I wish there was a way to make sarcasm come through in typing because that last sentence was supposed to be sarcastic. fyi.) This movie answers the questions we've all always had about the X-Men:  How did Professor Xavier get paralyzed? Why does Mystique walk around naked all the time?  Why aren't Charles and Magneto rivals who always call each other "old friend?"  How did the X-Men school get started?  Where'd they get that big plane?

 It's very good.  You should see it, if only for Michael Fassbender.

Mr. Rochester/Magneto/Michael Fassbender, (but mostly Mr. Rochester in this picture.)

*UPDATE:  My dad kindly pointed out to me that 1944 + 22 years does NOT equal 1962.  I guess I meant to say that the movie jumps ahead 18 years.  Soooooooooorrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!! (again, I wish there was a way to convey sarcasm in type)  I don't need basic math skills right now, it's summer!