X-Men : First Class is Refreshing!

Brett Ratner(X-Men Last Stand) and Sam Raimi(Spiderman 3) both messed up big time with the 3rd installments of two very famous movie franchises to the dismay of loyal fans. Though these movies made loads of money, it was more than an agreement from most of the fans that lack of quality was apparent and this meant that the studios had to do something about the disappointment. Hence, the decision by the makers to reboot the franchises.

So, here we have Matthew Vaughn of ‘Kick Ass’ fame directing the first installment of this new series. The movie takes us back to 1960s and talks about the circumstances that the mutants had to undergo in their initial days and how they all came together to form the team X-Men. The story has a backdrop of cold war and how the team does its bit to avoid a nuclear warfare.

So, does this movie really leave a positive impression ? For all the expectations it had and all the cynicism surrounding the take of origins approach employed, this movie does one hell of a job! It is beautifully shot, has great background music, good action scenes and all this topped off with brilliant acting performances.

James McAvoy(Professor X) and Michael Fassbender(Magneto) are a treat to watch every time they are on the screen. Not a single line delivered by these 2 gentlemen comes across as ‘off the target’. They don’t seem unmatched to the two legendary actors who played these roles in the earlier franchise. They carry the narration forward and impart great composure and panache to the proceedings.

I loved Jennifer Lawrence in Winter’s bone. She plays the role of Mystique here and gives a very humane touch to the character which definitely was never intended to be portrayed in the earlier franchise. The other mutant characters are also very well etched and are able enough to catch the attention of the audience. Kevin Bacon plays the badguy and gives the negative role enough style and meat.

First point that I’m most happy about is the fact that the movie doesn’t go overboard by including too many mutants in the mix and in the process too many stories in the plot. This helps the movie to keep firmly attached to the main plot with the few sub-plots adding enough spice. It would be interesting to see what the future installments will do on this front and how well do they introduce the newer mutants and how many. Second point is that the movie doesn’t solely rely on special effects to provide the ‘whoo-aah’ moments. Its not overdone and used adequately and effectively.

This movie is a perfect launch that the new franchise could have hoped for. All major characters have been firmly placed now and it would be a challenging job to go one up in the sequels.

Its a perfect BIG SCREEN movie that any regular movie watcher wouldn’t want to miss.