Inglourious Mutants

X-Men: First Class

Directed by Matthew
Vaughn

Runtime: 132 min.

Not terrible is the
best evaluation a sensible person could give to X-Men: First Class—but that isn’t good enough. This
back-to-adolescence prequel is meant to revive the franchise after Bryan Singer
drove X-Men 3 into uselessness.
Seeing how Professor Xavier and Magneto first met, and began their rivalry as
leaders of the specially gifted mutant crime fighters, merely rehearses the
familiar story with younger faces. James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender aren’t
exactly fresh in these roles; the characters and their situations are so
utterly familiar they can’t be rethought or refreshed. The entire film is a
hackneyed exercise.

Hack director
Matthew Vaughn’s specialty is British refurbishments. As in Layer Cake and Kick Ass, Vaughn repeats already established genres with a
desperate lack of imagination. The introduction of each mutant feels like déj
vu and is humorlessly drawn-out. Even with new actors playing Mystique
(Jennifer Lawrence), Darwin (Edi Gathegi), Beast (Nicholas Hoult), Riptide
(Alex González), Havok (Lucas Till), Vaughn finds no personality spark. This
makes him—shockingly—a lesser director than Bryan Singer. At least X-Men 2 showed Singer energized by the
outsider theme as a gay-teen allegory: Hugh Jackman, Rebecca Romijn, Alan
Cumming, Halle Berry and James Marsden were all flirt, promising unleashed
potency. Singer had anticipated the “It Gets Better” campaign—but then got
worse.

Vaughn stays timidly
within the X-Men comics’ narrative limits. He’s finally found an exploitable
fantasy mode but when he includes obvious James Bond and Dr. Strangelove
references, it only reinforces how mundane the material has become. Ironically,
that’s exactly why X-Men: First Class
serves as a jackpot for Vaughn just as the debutante Star Trek was for J.J. Abrams. These prequels give an illusion of
rejuvenation that might be especially appealing to susceptible young viewers
but while rebooting the box office these films also constrain viewers’
imaginations.

Take the good vs.
evil premise that starts in 1944 with the Nazi invasion of Poland and ends with
the Bay of Pigs standoff in 1963. It teaches vengeance not history, practically
turning the X-Men into Inglourious Basterds. Travestying
history doesn’t give edge or profundity to action comics; it just makes them
distasteful and dumb. Young Magneto’s choice between using his powers to
manipulate a Nazi coin or save his mother’s life is merely coarse; it gets
wrong the ethical choice that was so well played in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom when Indy’s dilemma opposed
diamonds and an antidote. 

X-Men: First Class trivializes each mutant’s motivation as childish
petulance. Vaughn lacks the knack for expressive action, reducing the athletic
gallantry Fassbender displayed in Centurion
to doing silly things like levitating a submarine. He wastes Fassbender’s
beautiful emotional capacity. Magneto and Professor X’s disputes lower personal
principles into mumble-jumble (“the point between rage and serenity”). And
Vaughn doesn’t dare push the earnest young men’s sympathies (“There’s so much
more to you than you know.”) toward romance. Instead, using Jennifer Lawrence,
January Jones and Zoe Kravitz as insipid sex objects is a tired alternative.

Sure, this prequel
could have been better, but using pre-sold comic book escapades to pacify
moviegoers couldn’t be worse. X-Men:
First Class tricks audiences into misunderstanding episodic narrative
pleasure. They become accustomed to dull, rehashed gimmicks, awaiting the next
ticket buy. Vaughn’s shrewd: His ending isn’t a cliffhanger, it’s a carrot.