X-Men: First Class

This is my first ever blog post, so everyone should be extremely excited to have the opportunity to read it! I tried not to spoil anything so you should be able to read without ruining the movie.

Expectations:
As a huge fan of the original three X-Men movies, I was certainly setting my expectations high for the prequel. The Wolverine origins movie was a disappointment to me, and I was scared that this would be too much like Wolverine. I am not a comic book buff so I did not know what the true storyline was supposed to be, leaving the movie as one big unbiased surprise for me. The biggest question for me was can they match the storyline up with the first three movies.

Plot:
The feel of the movie overall stayed very true to that of the original X-Men movies. The opening scene was the exact scene from the beginning of the first X-Men movie, which surprised me a bit. Because of this scene, I really felt like the movie was connected to the first three films right off the bat. As you learned more and more about the main characters (Professor X and Magneto), the rest of the story began to unfold. There is an intriguing connection between the Professor and Mystique that I believe should have shown up in the other three movies if this were to be accurate. There are many other cool characters, but the true storyline is always kept as the most important: the relationship between Magneto and the Professor. The bad guy, played by Kevin Bacon, was a bit boring at times. I could care less about him. I just wanted them to get back to the X-Men. There were two things that I noticed that did not line up with the original films. In X2, Hank McCoy is not yet blue, and, in The Last Stand, the Professor and Magneto visit Jean Grey together, each walking quite well. Overall, I was interested the entire time but was not surprised enough. I wanted to see something awesome that had a result in the first movies, but I was never amazed.

Characters:
James McAvoy was brilliant as the Professor. I felt the connection between him and Patrick Stewart immediately and was very satisfied with the choice. With Magneto on the other hand, I did not feel that connection. I don't know what it was, but Michael Fassbender just did not satisfy me. Jennifer Lawrence did a great job as Mystique, while Kevin Bacon just wasn't frightening enough as Sebastian Shaw. The best character award definitely goes to James McAvoy as Professor X. The worst character award goes to Rose Byrne, who played a CIA agent who somehow turned out to have a love connection. I just did not understand why she was at all necessary.

Conclusion:
Not bad at all, considering they had to match this film with three others. Yes, there were some problems, but there were way fewer than I expected. The cast was good, not great. Certainly better than Wolverine, but not as good as the original trilogy. The best scene award goes to the director for having the guts to open with the same exact scene as the first X-Men movie. The worst scene was how the professor became paralyzed. It just wasn't exciting enough for me. Finally, I give the movie 3 out of 5 stars and will be buying it to add to my X-Men collection in the fall.