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X-Men: First Class: A bad movie: Really: Really: Bad

One of the most unsettling themes of Inglorious Basterds is Jewish vengeance. In the last act of the film, the main characters converge on a propaganda film premiere with the intention of annihilating the Nazi elite. One particular shot features one of the main characters posthumously gloating over her victory as the architects her family’s destruction and the genocide of her people meet their end in a blaze of murderous fire. This biblical resolution to the horrors of the Holocaust stand in sharp contrast to the realities of history. Hitler took his own life when he realized Germany had no hope of victory while many others were convicted by a war crimes tribunal and punished accordingly. While not as superficially cathartic as Tarantino’s “eye-for-an-eye” ending, the post-holocaust Jewish response was a testament to their profound respect for justice, a beacon of light and hope for a civilization emerging from so many years of darkness. 

Devout fans of Marvel’s X-men are well aware of the subtext of the series. It is an allegory illustrating the consequences of racial discrimination. The victimization of Mutants in the books and films can be easily transposed with that of the Jewish people or any minority persecuted simply for existing. With that in mind, it’s easy to understand the artistic decision to appropriate the real Holocaust as the single motivating factor for the series’ antagonist, Magneto. A holocaust survivor himself, Magneto spends much of the first act of X-men: First Class hunting down his Nazi oppressors with deadly efficiency, thanks in no small part to his supernatural ability to manipulate metal to his every whim. Magneto ultimately comes to the conclusion by the end of the film that Mutants are the next stage in human evolution and in order for his race to thrive, the weaker species must be eradicated. It’s a rather perplexing conclusion considering Magneto’s origins. 

The most common pratfall in bringing a superhero comic book to life is failing to strike the right balance between our practical reality and what appears on the page. Failure to do so results in predictably catastrophic results, a mixed bag of the really cool and the embarrassingly absurd. The X-men movie franchise attempts to mitigate this by anchoring stories in real world issues and events, hoping this will be enough to bridge the divide. 

The first two films, directed by the competent Brian Singer, was an allegory for mutation as homosexuality. Indeed, in one scene of X2, upon discovering her child was a mutant, a mother asked “Have you tried not being a mutant”, illustrating the obvious parallel. In X3, considered by many to be the weakest of the series, the plot focused on the mutant “cure”, reflecting the real world perception held by a contingent amongst the religious right that homosexuality is a disease.

Michael Fassbender, who won his fame in a marvelous performance as a suave British soldier in “Inglorious Basterds”, brings the same level of sophistication and understanding of his character to the role of Magneto. He was an excellent casting decision, and if the movie remained focused on Magneto’s quest for jewish vengeance, the message, however unsettling, would still be one worth exploring. 

Look everyone, it’s the 60’s! You know it is b/c of their jackets!

Instead, the movie returns to a familiar superhero “save the world” cliche, distinguished in this case only b/c its a period piece. Set during the Cuban Missile Crisis of the 1960’s, the film tries its best to sell you on its setting and even with the 60s hair and clothing, it fails miserably to convince its audience they are watching something from the period. One must wonder if the decision to cast January Jones of Mad Men fame was simply an attempt to bolster the illusion. 

You know me, im in that show about the 60’s!

In one particularly baffling scene, the Russian fleet stands head to head with the American fleet, the commanders of each doing their very best to avoid world war three. With a little help from the Mutants, they do just that, and amidst their celebrations they decide to launch an unprovoked attack on the very people who helped them, ultimately starting the war they sought to avoid, only with different, more powerful enemies. One cannot help but wonder who ordered the attack and why the fleet commanders were so quick to abide, considering potential consequences of their actions. One can only assume this to be a convenient Hollywood plot device, a deus ex machina to justify Magneto’s conclusios and provide him with the motivations necessary to set him on his path to destroy the human race. Whatever the reason, it was a particularly ridiculous artistic decision given the government’s awareness of how ineffective the weapons of the 1960’s would be against a group of people with supernatural abilities. It is also a particularly loathsome view of our armed forces.

X-Men, for the most part, is an American story. Even though X-Men: First Class is set in the 1960’s, it ignores the important victories of the people of that generation in the pursuit of peace and racial tolerance that set the stage for the rest of the century. This is what happens when reality is injected into a superhero fantasy. Lose focus of the message and a movie devolves into a series of mindless action sequences. A good example of this is the final act of the re-imagined Batman film by Christopher Nolan. Nolan spends a great deal of time exploring the psychology of a man broken by the murder of his parents. So inspired and brilliant was his effort that for a time the movie seemed to transcend its comic book origins only to throw it all away with yet another “save the world” conclusion.

Maybe that is the inherent weakness in comic book films in general and the reason they never reach their full potential/greatness as motion pictures. X-men: First Class explores the revenge arc of an imaginary character that began during some of the worst years in real human history, followed by a quest to save the world from an imaginary emerging minority during another period in real human history where we almost destroyed our planet. Maybe that’s just too much to reconcile for any director. Ultimately, failure to do so has rendered this film a bloated mess of an effort to mask the fantasy in the veil of reality. 

Some other notable annoyances about this film:

Terrible. 

• The character design of Beast was ridiculous. Beast must be very difficult for makeup artists to translate to the big screen, as the character is a blue furred cross between an ape and a panther. The introduction of the final product elicited unintentional laughter from the audience, never a good sign. Think teen wolf meets bad Halloween costume at your local party store.
• Tempest, a relatively minor character in the book (one wonders why she was included to begin with), is a girl with the mutant power of flight via insect wings and the ability to incapacitate her enemies by shooting fluid from her mouth. You can imagine the audience’s reaction as she flew around the screen spitting loogies at people. There is also a confusing scene where Tempest reveals her mutant ability in the middle of a strip club with the curtains open. Considering all the mutants were “in the closet”, this seemed like a rather stupid oversight. 
• Oliver Platt is given nothing to work with in his short cameo. It’s almost criminal to waste such a talented actor.
• The Mystique transformation effect must have been incredibly cheap to pull off, as I have never seen her transform to and from her blue form in the books as she has in the films. One scene I counted seven times. 
• The use of titles, a plot device employed by writers to identify a location when one cannot be established in more subtle ways without slowing down the film, was particularly ridiculous in this film. One location, labeled “Covet CIA Training Base”, evoked a rather hearty groan from the audience. 
• Set design presented some awkward moments, specifically a nuclear powered submarine and an SR-71 black bird with a VTOL. I understand this is a comic book and the technology employed by the heroes and villains are more advanced, but considering this was a period piece, they seemed grossly out of place. 
• Following the tradition of the previous X-men films, there is a subplot of teenage romance between two mutants that only served as an unnecessary distraction. 

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