X-Men First Class

X-Men First Class introduces the background stories of the young Oxford graduate Charles Xavier (Professor X) and the concentration camp survivor, witnessing his mother’s brutal death, Erik Lehnsher (Magneto). Even though Matthew Vaughn, director, and Bryan Singer, producer, insist that this is the cheapest piece of the quadrology, X-Men does not stop for a moment catapulting momentous action scenes. The bad-mutants-versus-good-mutants story triggers several questions. Why is it often a struggle to comply with ourselves? What may be a possible justification of “Nazi Frankensteins”? And last but not least, how many more pieces will the producers come up with?!

The first 15 minutes establishes the upcoming drama through a few intensely theatrical scenes describing the two main characters’ remarkable childhood. Having the CIA involved, the movie takes up a whole new pace. A couple of kisses, some relatively funny jokes and thousands of bombs, being in the middle of the Cold War, take over the silver screen.

When a press member strikes the cast with the issue of historical credibility at the London premiere, Kevin Bacon, in a charming Hollywood manner, suggests the man go and watch a documentary if he is after facts. James McAvoy, the once priest-wannabe who later became the last king of Scotland, also recommended that pre-GCSE students may wait till after the exams to go and watch First Class.

The scriptwriter Jane Goldman mentioned serious values. She points out the moral lesson the movie carries as well as the possible, and often rather demanding to reach, resolution on offer. Reflecting on the previous proposition, most characters, except the exceedingly selfless and egoless Charles Xavier, would reposition themselves or at least encounter the stage where they re-evaluate the meanings of mutant life. Curiously, switching from Xavier to the anti-human mutant party does not only happen once. If X-men was not for a franchise, some could find it a socially critical statement by the filmmakers. However, this is not the case.

X-Men First Class, with or without knowing so, takes on an interesting notion originally raised by Voltaire - “Prejudices are what fools use for reason”. Historically speaking, X-Men First Class is as far from being credible as Kevin Bacon from playing an unattractive man, not mentioning the archive footage of the Red Square and Kennedy. However, withdrawing all cynicism and irony, Kevin Bacon’s final comment in the press conference “How would anyone know that the story is not true and that there was no such thing as a mutant?” does leave many of us thinking.