There are multitude of reasons why I love James McAvoy (despite his height, and height is always an issue for me), and they were all brilliantly depicted here. He was sleek, smart, eloquent and vibrantly charismatic, and at the same time strong and vigorous in ways Professor X as we X-Men geeks know him is not. The Charles-Raven platonic love was an interesting thing to watch, and despite my biases, after my second watch I have to admit that it was mostly Charles’ arrogance and (dare I say it) insensitivity that spun the creation of Mystique. Although Raven’s inherent insecurities account for a lot, of course. Charles was trying to save the world, and she was being a classic brat. Thus I still blame her.
And then there was Erik. Michael Fassbender‘s take on the metal-force mutant was intense and exhilarating, and one important color to watch is his multi-layered chemistry with Charles. There is a distinct pull on me of depictions of boy friendships, mostly because they rarely run deep and rarely leave a sensible mark. But this comic book bromance does, and sets the theme for its constant reappearance in the franchise.
There is a lot more to rave and rant about with X-Men: First Class–the Brit-pop edge/soundtrack, the psychedelic cool effects, the awesome evil of the antagonists, the themes of war that knock too close to the world today–,but I am a biased judge, and thus not a reliable movie critic. So all I can say is: do watch it. It was the best summer movie of my hard working summer.
