What's it all about? It is towards the end of WWII and children are emerging with mutations, many of which manifest themselves as special abilities. Raven can change her physical appearance and is taken in by Charles Xavier, a telepath. Eric Lensherr meanwhile has found that he can manipulate metal, but is in the hands of a ruthless and vicious Nazi scientist, Sebastian Shaw, who is preoccupied with mutant abilities. As we fast-forward to the 1960's, the Cold War is escalating, Shaw is gathering a mutant army and Xavier and Lensherr begin to round up those who will go onto become Xavier's X-Men.
*****
What's it like? Having lost its way with X-Men: The Last Stand and the terrible spin-off Wolverine, The X-Men franchise needed a fresh start very badly. In came director Matthew Vaughn and screenwriter Jane Goldman, who had refreshed the genre as a whole with their profane and violent but nonetheless successful and popular Kick-Ass. What they have given us is a reboot of considerable quality and enjoyment, if perhaps not quite as accomplished as its next closest reboot comparison, 2009's Star Trek. The early scenes with Lensherr in a concentration camp are suitably violent and bleak, Vaughn wisely refusing to gloss over the terrifying realities of the Holocaust. It's not trying to be Schindlers List or The Pianist, but it is at least tonally appropriate. We quickly move on to the early 1960's and find Eric Lensherr travelling the globe like 007, fully utilising his considerable powers and tracking Nazi war criminals as he goes. In some ways this sequence is over too soon, so much do we enjoy it, but there are more mutants to meet, teams to be formed and battle-lines to be drawn.
Slotting the Cuban Missile Crisis into the story of the birth of the X-Men is audacious, but it just about works. Xavier starts gathering together his young pupils and we see them develop and control their powers, with a couple of fun but foul-mouthed cameos on the way. Eventually we see how Xavier and Lensherr come to be at odds with each other but it is all very intelligently developed and although a lot of ground is covered fast, the various character arcs are convincingly delivered. Chief credit for that goes to the principals. As Xavier and Lensherr respectively we have James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender who bring real strength and heft to their roles. Both of them are clearly having a lot of fun with their roles, especially McAvoy who gives us a much breezier Xavier than we've known from the previous films. Jennifer Lawrence builds on her Oscar-nominated work in Winter's Bone with an affecting performance as Raven/Mystique, though the rest of the youngsters have insufficient room to breath. Kevin Bacon is no surprise as an excellent villain, being far from one-dimensional, though his cohorts are virtually silent and therefore mostly anonymous, making their motives and intentions hard to divine.
Some have hailed this as the best comic book film since The Dark Knight, which I think is a little generous. Heck, it's not even the best comic book film of the year (take a bow, Thor), but it is excellent, exciting, very funny and a massive improvement on the last couple of films in the franchise. It left me hungry for Second Class, which must be a good sign.
*****
Should I see it? As a general answer, yes. It has a lot to say about identity, self-image, self-acceptance, conformity, forgiveness and self-control and these are themes that we should consider and chew over with each other. Having said that, there is a fair amount of overt sexuality on show and virtually every female character displays an unhelpful and unnecessary amount of cleavage. Scantily clad women abound and so therefore the film's 12A certificate should generally be treated as a recommendation that under 12's not see the film at all. There is some pretty wince-making violence and the now customary "it's a 12A so we can use the f-word once" thing. I'm not sure where this has come from, but it seems to now be the norm, so be warned. Some may find the portrayal of mind-reading and telekinesis unpalatable from a Christian perspective, though this is never presented as occult activity, rather the result of genetic mutation. As in all things, let your conscience guide you. If your 12+ children (i.e. your children over the age of twelve, I assume/hope you don't have more than 12 children) want o see this, try to see it with them. They may not be keen on the idea, so you may have to bribe them by offering to pay, but it will be worth it to be able to open up a conversation about the film's themes and to see what your children think about the film's presentation of its female characters. Worth checking out, though caution is advised.
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