Movie Review: X-men: First Class

X-Men: First Class

Release:  2011

Rated:  PG-13

Genre:  Science Fiction

Length:  132mins = 2hrs, 12mins

Recommendation:  If you are a die hard Marvel fan, or X-men fan, then yes you will enjoy the history of the characters.  Even for a movie to relax with, it's a little slower moving though.

Synopsis:
Before Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr took the names Professor X and Magneto, they were two young men discovering their powers for the first time.  Before they were archenemies, they were closest of friends, working together, with other Mutants (some familiar, some new), to stop the greatest threat the world has ever known.  In the process, a rift between them opened, which began the eternal war between Magneto's Brotherhood and Professor X's X-men.

My Thoughts and Summary:
The synopsis is pretty right on with this movie.  We meet all the original X-men players when they are teens, or coming into their own.  Even a few extras we never get to see in the future.  We learn the histories of what brings each character to their thinking while fighting a threat to the mutants and the world.  But in doing so their views of being mutants or being human veers in different directions, drawing the line between Professor X and Magneto. 

We watched this one as we are X-men fans.  The story really helped put everyone in a new light for me, and why they are the way they are with each other and in thinking.  It was interesting to see them come together and separate.  I always new Xavior and Magneto where friends at one point and separated, but didn't know what happened.  And we got to see how Xavior came to be paralyzed.

We liked it for what we learned of the origins and about the characters.  Yes, you can hear it, there is a but here.  But, it was slow pacing for us.  This seemed to be more informative than action and storyline.

My husband and son both agree with the slow pacing.  It was almost to slow for us.  I'm kind of surprised the kid didn't leave to go play his games, but I think we were all curious about the characters origins.  However, we really liked learning the history of the characters.