X-Men: First Class

Directed by: Matthew Vaughn

Screenplay by: Ashley Miller, Zack Stentz, Jane Goldman, Matthew Vaughn

Story by: Bryan Singer, Sheldon Turner

It's been a long time since we've had a good "X-Men" film. Alas, "The Last Stand" was not up to the same standard as the rest, and I'm not sure that the origin film for Wolverine really counts. In the shadow of the success of Christopher Nolan's success with his Batman reboot series (and somehow despite failure of the Superman reboot), it was only a matter of time before a new X-Men series was born.

The film begins with an evil Nazi scientist Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) experimenting on a young Magneto, finding that anger releases his power. A quick jump forward to the 1960s, a young Charles Xavier is writing papers about the evolutionary nature of genetic mutations on humans. Xavier and Magneto cross paths in an attempt to stop Shaw, and so, with some financing from the CIA, the X-Men are born. The two start rounding up young mutants and training them. Shaw shows up and convinces a few of the mutants to join his fight against humanity. The rest of the X-Men go "underground" and finish their training. Eventually (in a slight re-writing of history), Shaw tries to start World War III via the Cuban Missile Crisis, and only the X-Men can stop him. Although a nuclear war is averted, Magneto begins to ascribe to Shaw's views and leaves the X-Men, taking a few followers with him...

As an X-Men fan, I was happily pleased with this film. There are certainly some continuity issues with this film and some other minor points in the other X-Men movies, but, frankly, I didn't care. The feature I most appreciated was the telling of Magneto's story - spending time as a Nazi hunter, helping Xavier without buying into his idealism - which was often alluded to in the earlier films but largely went untold.

Both James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender both did excellent jobs of playing their characters (Xavier and Magneto, respectively) in their own unique way while also staying close to the characters which Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen had already developed. I was completely able to buy into their characters as younger versions of the characters I already know, while also understanding that the story was not necessarily a direct prequel to the earlier stories. In other words, Xavier and Magneto were rich powerful characters.

The film's flaw may have been in it's overreaching story. It tried to tell too many stories - so many that it was hard to care about all of them, and a few of them could have been cut on the editing room floor. For example, as much as I love Oliver Platt, his character was largely irrelevant and was mainly a conduit to connect Xavier to an early version of the Cerebro device. This added to the already film's already long running time. There was also a montage sequence, which I usually despise, although in his case it worked well with the comic book motif of the movie (with all those little side frames and whatnot).

The effects were impressive, if a bit cartoonish - which is fine because the movie is basically a glorified comic book. I'm not sure if some of the scenes will play well away from the big screen, but only time will tell on that.

I recommend seeing this film, especially for fans of the X-Men series. The film is not disappointing. Just remember - it's a comic-book... it's a comic-book... it's a comic-book...

Thor

Director: Kenneth Branagh

Written by:

-Screenplay: Ashley Miller, Zach Stentz, Don Payne

-Story: J. Michael Straczynski, Mark Protosevich

Being totally upfront (as I always am, sometimes to a fault), I grew up absolutely loving the "Thor" comic books. I've always been fascinated with this hero-as-mythical-god character and his adventures. I've also easily been able to ignore the strange contradiction of an ancient Norse god somehow speaking Elizabethan english. But, to my point - I'm not sure that this review is completely unbiased. I don't care, but I thought you should know.

In the film, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is banished from the kingdom of Asgard and has his powers stripped from him. Thor spends the rest of the movie trying to regain his powers. Unfortunately, without Thor in Asgard to keep his brother Loki in check, Loki has seized power and is up to his typical antics.

I absolutely loved this film. It managed to efficiently capture the energy and spirit of the comic books while also forging a new path for the character. Thor himself is exactly how I've imagined him for my nearly two decades of reading him. Loki is just as nasty as always, although I don't feel he received enough screen time to develop into the truly nasty villain that he should be. Even Natalie Portman's portrayal of Jane Foster was not as bad as I had imagined (although I'll never forgive her for what she did to the "Star Wars" prequels).

The visual effects were amazing, if a bit over-the-top. Asgard was visually stunning, although the CGI limited how many panoramic shots were seen, limiting most of the Asgard sequences to only a few locations. The Destroyer (unnamed in the film, for some odd reason) is terrifying in its destructive simplicity and managed to convincingly destroy basically an entire New Mexico town. My only fear, though, is that the effects are so grand that they won't translate well onto the small screen - but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Most impressive was how well balanced I felt the film was between comic book surrealism and a basic adventure story. The battle with the Destroyer is a perfect example - the little New Mexico town had a great sense of verisimilitude, but the battle itself was straight out of a comic. It didn't feel too far out of this world as to disrupt my sense of disbelief, but it clearly wasn't realistic either.

There were definitely some pacing issues in the story. The movie spends quite a long time establishing and developing characters before anything meaningful happens in the plot. I suppose some of that fat could have been cut while still maintaining the core vision of the story, although the epic scope of the film might have been diminished.

Go see this movie now!