Lets revisit why this movie sucks.
***spoiler Alert***
It's lifeless.
One of the few "bright spots" mentioned is Magneto.
First Class: The drama is getting magneto to turn a satellite dish with this powers. He also lifts a submarine out of the water...wow...cool.
X-Men 2: Magneto uses metal ingested by a guard to rip the guard apart internally. He then creates steal balls from the metal and blows the crap out of his cell, freeing himself.
Which is better?
Mystique
First Class: "Oh I'm blue! I'm fugly!" "Oh wait, it's ok..."Mutant and Proud!" She sports orange hair that looks like it belongs on an EQII clay haired avatar.
X-Men 1: Mystique (way the fuck hotter, played by Rebecca Romijn, disguises herself as Wolverine to infiltrate a complex and then does all sorts of acrobatic shit, she is an important part of the movie with complex motivations.
Which was more interesting?
Action:
First Class: A bunch of lifeless, dumb powered Mutant kids are raided by Sabastian Shaw. Highlights include some no name broad that can fly, not the more well known mutant Pixie, Scott Summers brother Havok that has the dumb chest power that is boring on screen, im falling asleep here it was so boring I don't recall the rest of the stupid shit thrown together with the kids. The action scenes are downright dull and lack any kind of creativity.
X-Men 2: One of the most amazing opening scenes in any movie has Nightcrawler bamfing all over the White House on this way to assassinate the president. This scene is so amazing that you get your money's worth from the movie in the first 5 minutes and can go home happy right then and there.
I'm not even going to ask. X-Men 2 is on a completely other plane of badassness compared to First Class.
"First Class"
I can hear the excuses now..well this is an "origins" story so simpleton things like basic moving of an object should be interesting...um, no it's not.
Speaking of origins...they are boring in First Class. Compare them to Rogue's introduction in X-Men....for fuck's sake, she had an epic intro starting off with almost killing her boyfriend with her power...meeting up with Wolverine as a runaway, having some actual god damned character development with relationships with both Wolverine and Iceman (Bobby Drake). There sense of discovery and being new is all there. It's taken from the idea in the X-Men Comics that introduced Kitty Pryde to the X-Men, using her as a way to introduced everyone else to the world of mutants.
The character development is almost non existent in First Class which is supposed to be a fucking reboot origin movie. They are rebooting what was already interesting and making something very generic set in the 60's with the big threat being the Cuban Missile Crisis and an almost comedic finale with the bazillion missiles fired all at once at the mutants.
First Class isn't anywhere close to X-Men 1 or 2. You can judge it on it's own merits...whatever. If you like to settle for mediocre, you got what you wanted.
I prefer to consider it this way:
Magneto
Ian McKellen vs Fassbender...are you serious? Ian McKellen is pure badass as Magneto. I'll take Ian McKellen in a landslide...and that's starting off with the brightest spot of X-Men First Class.
vs
Professor X
Patrick Stewart vs Laurence Belcher
How many fucking times does he touch his head in First Class? We get it!
vs
Opening Scene from X-Men 1: Intense Magneto origin from WW 2
Opening Scene for X-Men 2: Epic Nightcrawler White House Scene
Opening Scene for X-Men First Class: Exact fucking opening footage from X-Men 1, wtf? Way to start off weak. It was great in X-Men 1...maybe for a reboot you might come up with something different instead of the EXACT same scene? Good god. They should have just patched together a movie from X-men 1 and 2 footage...would have been better than what we got.
Reboots are fine. There happens to be a ton of great existing material to work with. They could have used Joss Whedons Astonishing X-Men. They could have used Grant Morrison's oustanding New X-Men run...they could have used Chris Claremont's very first Uncanny X-Men material that dealt with Sebastian Shaw, Emma Frost, etc....but they went with something completely uninteresting.
Perhaps people need a refresh. Rewatch X-Men 1 or 2 and then attempt to place First Class anywhere near it. WTF is wrong with you people giving this movie an 8 or 9 out of 10? What fucked up scale are you working off of? First Class was a weak effort. You scramble for any scrap of decent acting in this movie to call good. Plot? Sucked. Action scenes? Sucked worse. Prof X Magneto and Beast...passable performances that float to the top of the toilet bowl of crappy acting in this movie. Kevin Bacon is "ok" playing a boring version of Shaw. That's not his fault. Take those best performances of First Class and compare them to their counterparts...Ian McKellin is better, Patrick Stewart is Better, Kelsey Grammer (Beast, and one of the notable positive os X-Men 3) better.
Villains?
Shaw vs William Stryker
Hell, William Stryker was just a normal man and he was a more interesting villain than Shaw.
- [Show]
Really? This is the Grand Finale of First Class? Jesus.
X-Men First Class was crap. If you were entertained by it. Good for you. As X-Men and Comic movies go, it was a major disappointment in story, overall acting, and action.
I'll take this thanks!
I'm the Juggernaut Bitch!