This summer the box office was dominated by Marvel, bringing in a total of $499,215,624. Marvel released three movies this summer; Thor, Captain America and, of course, X Men First Class. First Class is a prequel to the X men trilogy, tells the story of Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Eric Lensherr (Michael Fassbender) and how they became the well-known heroes and villains of the comic book world. It did well in the box office, bringing in a total of $144,711,000.
The movie is set place during the Cold War and both characters have a place in this story. Charles is determined to unite all of the mutants, people with a gene mutation that grants them special abilities, and find them a place in the world. Eric’s story is somewhat different. He is focused on seeking revenge for the murder of his parents at the hand of ex-Nazi mutant Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon.) Both stories intertwine and the two start a very close bond, almost like brothers, building up to the great friendship and respect that you see in the original trilogy.
All actors gave amazing performances and everyone worked well together in the movie. But the best performances were from McAvoy and Fassbender. Whenever they were on scene together they gave off such strong vibes, especially the scene when they are training were McAvoy helps Fassbender get rid of a lot of his hate and shows him that he still has happy memories.
It was great to see characters from the original movies like Xavier, Magneto, Beast, Mystique and even a cameo appearance by Wolverine (Hugh Jackman.) It was also great to see heroes from the comics that were never able to make their big screen debut in the original trilogy, like Banshee, Havoc, Darwin and Azazel.
Kevin Bacon (as Sebastian Shaw) was the ultimate villain in First Class. He was funny, powerful and ruthless at all the right points in the movie and played the role perfectly.
The only down side to the movie was the timeline. Many people who watched the original trilogy and the Wolverine movie may be confused at how the time moves. At some points it seemed like it was more of a remake than a prequel. Other than that the movie was solid. It had a great plot and lots of well-rounded characters. There were a lot of humorous references to the future of all the characters, including jokes about Charles Xavier shaving his head. It was also great to see all the real news reels from the Cold War shown on the T.V’s, including J.F.K’s famous Cuban Missile Address.
It was one of the more successful movies that were released this summer. The DVD runs for 2 hours and 11 minutes and includes over 2 hours of special features, including deleted and extended scenes. The Blu-Ray includes a digital copy for your portable devices.
It is definitely a movie to add to your DVD or Blu-Ray collection.
