All about X-men First Class, movie review

X-Men First Class

The popularity of the ‘X-Men’ series stems from the fact that its mutants are stand-ins for the marginalised among us. Only these mutants have the abilities, if they choose to find and channel them, to retaliate against their oppressors.

Despite being lower in the established social strata, they have the powers to shuffle the existing order in their favor. The question that remains, then, is how they choose to effect this change – through dialog or damage infliction. Matthew Vaughn’s ‘X-Men First Class’ is concerned with the same issues that made the first three Bryan Singer films in the series entertaining.


Its defining motif is its exercise of contrasts. Set in a time when communism was still perceived a threat and Professor X and Magneto were still Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender), the film consistently employs this needle of contrast to weave the various threads in its yarn.

Compare, for instance, the adolescence of our two protagonists. Charles Xavier is a child of luxury, while Lehnsherr is a product of oppression. Xavier’s telepathic abilities developed due to the lack of other challenges while Lehnsherr’s were the product of immense duress and anger.

Another luxury that Xavier is afforded, by virtue of his purely cerebral powers, is the lack of physical deformity. This is again contrasted with a young Raven, the shape shifter Mystique played by a nubile young Jennifer Lawrence, who is constantly conflicted about having to assume a more presentable form. The same questions that afflict Lehnsherr’s relationship with Xavier confront her relationship with the Professor as well. How will one who has never felt either the searing tattoo that reduces you to a number or the staring gaze that reduces you to an animal understand?

Each of Xavier’s friendships, forged with his good intentions, is doomed by the disparity between the haves and have-nots. Professor X may have the love and respect of his fellow mutants but their allegiance is an altogether different matter. Despite its purported concerns with internal strife, the film sacrifices a large portion of its time to dealing with external nemeses. Sebastian Shaw, a mutant himself, returns with his cabal of villains Emma Frost (January Jones’ single note playing perfectly for the ice princess she is cast as), Riptide and Azazel to bring the United States and the USSR to the brink of nuclear war.

Shaw operates from a submarine, as if to indicate that despite what our history texts tell us, there is always something more that lies beneath. It is up to an ad-hoc team assembled by Xavier, Lehnsherr and CIA agent Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne in an often-goes-missing role) to foil his plans and save the world. There is, of course, no surprise that they do – what we are really there to see is how the crown of evil is passed down from Shaw to Lehnsherr and how the rivalry between the friends is cemented.

Set in a time when internal political strife in the United States was reaching a fever pitch, it is symptomatic that this film chooses to focus on external threats rather than focus on the emotional breakthroughs of each character. This contrast, the one between what the film chooses to exploit and what it leaves unexplored, is its defining characteristic.