UK Film Review
- Nov 18, 2021
- 3 min read

X-Men: First Class throwback film review

★★★★

Directed by: Mattherw Vaughn

Written by: Ashley Miller, Zack Stentz, Jane Goldman

Starring: James McAvoy, Kevin Bacon, Micheal Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Holut

Throwback Film Review by: Rachel Pullen

X-Men: First Class (2011) Film Review

Remember last week where I concluded that Dr X can’t use his legs and it's all a sympathy ploy so that he can continue to profiteer off war? Sure you do, but apparently what I didn’t know is they made a movie all about how he apparently lost the use of his legs, and it’s all legit…yeah right I say, but for arguments sake, I thought it would be responsible of me to check out this so called true story of Dr X and his apparent inability to use his walking feet.

X-Men: First Class (although no one travels in first class when on trains and planes which disappointed me) is the tale of Dr X and Magneto in their younger days - they both are on missions, Magneto wants to find the German dude who shot his mum when he was a child in the concentration camps, and Dr X wants to form an alliance with the CIA in order to help out. Really we know he is just getting weapons of mass destruction blueprints but whatever at this point.

It’s not long before the two become pals; they play chess and bend metal and try to build an environment for other mutants to flourish in as they gather them from around the globe using some brain hat that Dr X wears which allows him to find people anywhere in the world who are mutants, think smartphones before smartphones.

He gathers them together, they are the good guys, but Kevin Bacon is doing the same thing on a submarine, and they are the bad guys, I think we all know where this is heading…

But there are missiles, and the humans are being idiots with them, of course, and some of the mutants are like “blow shiz up, Submarine power!!!” and Dr X is like “NO, we must help our homeland, America and wave a flag and do this all on a ship cos that’s fun”, they have the higher ground over Kevin Bacon’s submarine party… also because of this movie I think Kevin Bacon is always underwater, is he there now? Who knows, all we know is he is trying to sell us mobile data plans.

But we digress from the most important part, Magneto flips hard and starts to go against Dr X and while doing so accidentally moves a bullet from the air and it goes into Dr X’s spine and then his legs are game over…oh really? You’re trying to tell me, after two hours of a movie where millions of people on earth have special powers, which range from flying, mind-reading, to turning into a beast, not one of them, not one single one, which he can hunt down because he has the special hat we mentioned earlier, can help him regain the use of his legs? Yeah, come at me with your reasoning comic book people because I don’t believe it for a second.

Let’s talk actors…Kevin Bacon, he is my hot old man fantasy, and I don’t need to tell you he kicks ass, and of course keeps it up for his role as the bad boy in this flick, Michael Fassbender, a man who has a dynamic and diverse acting career, who always impresses me no matter what the role. Although I have avoided his superhero film career just because I don’t really like the genre, kills it.

X-Men: First Class is not something I would normally reach for, but to be fair it was very enjoyable, it had a fun storyline, it’s covered all the bases that hardcore fans would want to see from an origin flick, it looks stunning and considering the multiple locations and being set in the 60’s, they have done good research into the appearances of the locations for that time in history.

And yes, Michael Fassbender and Kevin Bacon speak German in this movie, and as someone who also speaks German, this was very hot…thanks boys.

So, this week what have our superhero special hats zapped into our brains?