I’ll start by saying I loved X-Men: First Class. It’s definitely as good (if not better) than the first two X-Men films. It’s certainly a lot more grown up!
I loved the characters, the acting, the storyline, the setting. What Christopher Nolan did with “Batman Begins” (A great movie that happened to include superheroes), is the same feeling I had with the latest X-Men film. Set back in the ’60s, it had a really similar flavor to the old, great James Bond films. Only with mutants. (Although Goldfinger would make a good mutie, wouldn’t he?)
That said, no movie is 100% perfect. And there were a few things about “X-Men: First Class” that annoyed me. [SPOILER WARNING: If you haven't seen the film yet, then stop reading now.] Since everyone loves lists, I came up with the 10 Things That Pissed Me Off About “X-Men: First Class”…
Where the hell was Colossus?
How do you have a film where Russia plays a major role, and NOT include one of the most beloved X-Men of all time: Peter Rasputin, a.k.a. Colossus?!? Granted, if this film fits in perfectly with the other X-Men films, Peter shows up much later as a young kid. So he most likely wasn’t even born yet. Still, why not at least get the Rasputin name in there somehow?
Sebastian Shaw’s not a mutant!
I didn’t run out to the bathroom or grab an extra box of Sno-Caps in the middle of the movie. So how did I miss Nazi scientist Sebastian Shaw suddenly gaining mutant powers? Clearly he was experimenting on young Erik to unlock mutant powers, but that’s a big leap from seeing a mutant in action, to becoming one yourself. Not to mention that giving yourself mutant powers does not make you a mutant. You need to be born with it!
He’s cuttin’ it loose, a Footloose!
And speaking of Shaw… it was really hard to watch Kevin Bacon play a bad guy and NOT have the “Footloose” soundtrack running through my head every time he delivered a new bad guy line.
"I'll be right there, Emma. Just gotta cut loose first..."
Angel’s a chick? With Wasp’s wings?
I wouldn’t mind so much that Angel was a woman. Her Wasp-like wings even looked pretty neat. I just don’t get why instead of a bio-sting, she basically barfed up some exploding venom. WTF was that all about? (After some digging, I just learned that Grant Morrison actually created this exact character in his New X-Men run) Regardless, what bugged me about this Angel is that we were already introduced to the winged Warren Worthington in X-Men 3. So why have another Angel? There’s so many other characters they could’ve chosen, even if they wanted to go with a female character. Polaris. Psylocke. Heck, even Boom Boom or Marrow would’ve been something new.
Why bother with Riptide?
While I never even heard of Azazel (that’s what I get from not reading X-Men comics religiously anymore), he at least looked cool and his obvious similarity to Nightcrawler makes sense. But Riptide? I never liked him in the comics, and in this movie, he looked insanely cheesy. A guy making tiny little tornadoes in his hands that grow and destroy things? I kept picturing the big blue Genie from Disney’s Aladdin every time those tiny twisters showed up in the palm of his hand.
Charles amnesia kiss with Moira Mactaggart
If anyone but Bryan Singer was involved in this movie (he has a story credit) , I probably wouldn’t have had a problem with this. But his obsessive love for the Richard Donner “Superman” films makes it pretty hard to believe that Charles’ amnesia-kiss with Moira wasn’t a complete tribute to the Superman/Lois Lane amnesia kiss from Superman II.
Because Superman clearly isn't powerful enough... let's give him the Super Amnesia kiss!
How can you have only one of the Summers’ brothers?
Trust me, I’m not complaining. I hate Cyclops as much as the next guy. But how can you have Alex Summers (clearly the crappier of the two) and not even mention his brother Scott? This is the one bigger flaw that doesn’t seem to connect with the later X-films. Wouldn’t Cyclops mention he has a brother with mutant powers?
I sat through the whole friggin’ credits for nothing!
I feel hornswaggled. I know it’s a completely different movie studio putting out the X-Men films than the other current Marvel films (Iron Man, Thor, Hulk and Captain America), but comic fans have gotten spoiled waiting for the awesome teaser clips at the end of each movie. I certainly wasn’t the only one in the packed theater to wait through the entire credits, only to see a blank screen. A few dozen moviegoers joined in a perfect chorus of boos before filing out.
And that’s about it. Nitpicky on most of these? Maybe. But what pisses me off the most about “X-Men: First Class,” is that I couldn’t even come up with a list of 10 things that pissed me off…
Angel Salazar actually isn’t supposed to be a female version of Warren Worthington’s Angel. She’s a character created during Grant Morrison’s run on New X-Men. I don’t think anyone ever particularly cared for or about her, and if I recall, she was depowered during the whole M Day thing anyway.
TDF Pamela recently posted..X-Men- First Class Discussion!
Right. I only learned that after doing a Google search on her character after seeing the film. Same with Darwin. I thought both their characters were made up for the film but I was wrong. Regardless, even if she’s not an Angel ripoff (which means that Morrison created her as an Angel knockoff), I still think it’s a waste using her in the film.
Well they actually changed the whole thing around with the Summers bros because Scott was the first to join. If X-Men and its sequels are to be considered true to the comics’ Summers storyline, then Alex simply had not joined the X-Men yet. Scott and Alex were separated as children before either of their abilities manifested, so Scott would not have known about Alex’s power.
I actually liked Alex better than Scott, personally. XD And they of course had to have Alex in it because Scott’s been in all the others. They didn’t want to rehash the same old character, and I’m sure it would’ve sucked to bring James Marsden back in. After all, First Class was all about fresh faces.
I realize Hollywood likes to crumble up comic worlds into little unrecognizable balls of plotholes, timeline inconsistencies, and generally a lot of unnecessary fuckery, and it sucks, big time. But that’s why you have to set aside what you know going into them and just enjoy them as standalones. Like I do with the Harry Potter films…
Havok aka Alex Summer was Younger then Scott But he was The First to Join the x-men By a month Gap
Actually, Scott was Xavier’s first X-Man…
if you was’nt such a dick you would know that Shaw, Sebastian
is a mutant heres the link bitch: http://marvel.com/universe/Shaw%2C_Sebastian
lol it says nothing about him being a mutant, however apparently his son was. idiot.
@skillz112 Thank you for your eloquent response. And if you actually read my points, I know that the comic version of Sebastian Shaw is a mutant. I was referring to the movie version who was not a mutant early on in the film. It just suddenly seemed to happen. Which leads me to believe he experimented on himself to gain powers (which technically is not a mutant).
Azazel is actually not a mutant but a demon. In the comic he often fights against the xmen and later he and mystique become the mother and father to nightcrawler, Azazel later gives him to a gypsy family where he is then raised.