X-Men: First Class [Review by Haus]

X-Men: First Class is a silly movie. It is also a surprisingly good movie. Matthew Vaughn (who also directed two of my favorite films, Layer Cake and Kick-Ass) did a superb job with some truly boneheaded material.

I’ve never been a fan of the X-Men. I like Batman. Superheroes with lots of money and years of training are fine by me; superheroes with magical powers always seem hopelessly uninteresting. For starters, writers carefully weave stories around them to provide dramatic showdowns tailored to whatever nonsense powers the heroes and villains in question happen to have. The X-Men have always taken this affront one step further, hammering away at a “genes are the future” back-story that attempts to explain phenomena that are not only biologically but also physically impossible with a single stroke of the “but it’s genetic mutation!” brush. Save Mission to Mars, little makes this scientist cringe more reliably. As far as I’m concerned, X-Men: First Class was doomed from the get go.

So why was it so awesome? It was awesome because Vaughn can suspend my disbelief — or at least uncomfortably string it up — for two-plus hours in a way few other directors can. He’s made a fun, loud, glossy 1960s period piece with flawless special effects, rich design, shiny and evocative set pieces, terrific costuming and a pair of male leads who are really, actually, fun to watch.

Don’t get me wrong: First Class will foist upon you some of the most idiotic material you ever will see in film. From a teenager whose supersonic shrieks buoy his anachronistic wingsuit just enough that he can fly by screaming to an uncomfortably strange looking, fire-spitting exotic dancer with dragonfly wings, it asks a fair bit of us. But it also delivers some terrific comedic interludes, such as James McAvoy’s come-hither lounging during a chess match on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial (?), and literally every shot of Kevin Bacon’s sigmoidial buttnoid helmet.

January Jones somnambulates through a few more minutes of screen time — leaving the total number of discrete characters she has played in her career at one — dispensing her by-now-trademark brand of eye-twitch non-acting (which I first saw in the Love Actually Milwaukee bar scene — your first memory may vary) but manages for perhaps the first time to look absolutely stunning. Interesting aside: The fact that she may or may not be carrying Matthew Vaughn’s baby might explain her ability to blink her way through this picture in a low-cut leather outfit without 1) acting skill or 2) fear of being fired.

The X-Men franchise was really starting to suck. But let me be clear. First Class is nothing like its latest predecessors. It’s a hoot. It’s shiny, it’s fun, it’s loud, it’s well done. It has a story. It nicely foreshadows the other X-Men films, but not to the point of being constrained by them. It has a terrific Hugh Jackman cameo. It boasts some truly funny lines, and a truly ridiculous helmet. It thumps its good, strong, tri-tonal heroic score often enough that you’ll hum it on the way out. It does everything a “summer blockbuster” should do, and does it well.

That you should forget physics goes without saying — it’s a superhero picture. You should also forget chemistry and genetics. But First Class will make you remember that even crushingly stupid superpowers need not a shitty film beget.

HAUS VERDICT: Surprisingly terrific.

See what the other half thinks: Parsi’s Review.