{"id":1576,"date":"2011-06-06T18:55:55","date_gmt":"2011-06-07T01:55:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hotnerdgirl.wordpress.com\/?p=1576"},"modified":"2024-02-27T09:47:34","modified_gmt":"2024-02-27T09:47:34","slug":"x-men-first-class-you-got-it-wrong-but-i-heart-you-anyways","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hotnerdgirl.com\/index.php\/2011\/06\/06\/x-men-first-class-you-got-it-wrong-but-i-heart-you-anyways\/","title":{"rendered":"X-Men: First Class – you got it wrong but I heart you anyways"},"content":{"rendered":"
Hot Nerd Girl could be a superhero name...right?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Oh Lordy do I love me some X-Men.\u00a0 After Thor, it is probably my favorite comic book series.\u00a0 No offense to Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, etc.\u00a0 I adore you all but I had a particular hard on for X-Men<\/a> growing up.<\/p>\n

So I\u2019ll admit it.\u00a0 When I first heard that there was going to be an X-Men prequel, my heart sank a little.\u00a0 I\u2019m generally pretty wary of prequels.\u00a0 They scream \u201cdesperate attempt to make money off of a beloved franchise\u201d to me.\u00a0 But thanks to the successful prequel-ness of the latest Star Trek <\/em>incarnation, I was willing to give it a shot.\u00a0 That, and it couldn\u2019t possibly\u00a0be worse than Brett Ratner\u2019s disjointed X-Men: The Last Stand<\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t expecting to enjoy it as much as I did.\u00a0 And despite the fact that it went completely against pretty much everything that\u2019s been established by the comic books as far as character histories, I had so much fun watching it.<\/p>\n

So I\u2019m structuring my review much like I did for Thor<\/a>.\u00a0 Because I can. Beware, I spoil the crap out of things….<\/p>\n

[youtube:http:\/\/youtu.be\/frcCCHb9LHc]<\/p>\n

I pretty much fell in love with James McAvoy the instant he came on screen as Mr. Tumnus in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe<\/em> and my love for him only deepened when I heard him speak in his native Scottish accent.\u00a0 Drool.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know what it is about Scottish accents but they sure do it for me.\u00a0 He also happens to be a brilliant actor.\u00a0 It\u2019s the little things about him, the slight facial expressions, how he reacts to the other actors, those dreamy blue eyes *le sigh*<\/p>\n

He's so dreamy...<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Anyhooters\u2026he was an excellent choice to play a young Charles Xavier.<\/p>\n

Main deviation from the comic books:<\/p>\n

In the movie, Charles comments about being glad that he still has his hair.\u00a0 In the comic books his hair is gone by the time he finishes high school.\u00a0 Too much mental power for it to stick around (be grateful Jean Grey and Emma Frost, that your mental powers didn\u2019t do that to you). The idea of him growing up with Raven Darkholme was an interesting choice.\u00a0 He actually grew up with his step-brother Cain aka Juggernaut, and they most definitely did not get along.\u00a0 And Hank getting all of the credit for building Cerebro is ludicrous.\u00a0 Xavier built Cerebro, Hank later enhanced it.\u00a0 His first students did include Beast and Angel\u2026but it was Warren Worthington III (later Archangel) not Angel Salvadore.\u00a0 Another of the first class?\u00a0 Scott Summers aka Cyclops, NOT his brother Alex Summers aka Havok.\u00a0 Iceman and Marvel Girl weren\u2019t cool enough for this movie apparently so they just got ignored altogether.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been asked more than once how Professor X became a paraplegic.\u00a0 Well thank you Matthew Vaughn, because now all of those people probably think I\u2019m a jack ass. Contrary to what First Class<\/em> would have you believe, Charles was NOT crippled by a bullet intended for Magneto.\u00a0 He was actually crippled by an alien named Lucifer who dropped a big ol\u2019 boulder on his legs.\u00a0 MUCH more believable thankyouverymuch.<\/p>\n

I vaguely remember Michael Fassbender from Inglourious Basterds but, to be honest, I never really paid much attention to him.\u00a0\u00a0Until now.\u00a0 Damn, that boy can act too.\u00a0 I liked that he looked a little older than everyone else after what he\u2019d been through during the holocaust and the scene in the bar in Argentina was one of my fave moments in the film.<\/p>\n

Hey, that dorky hat comes in handy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Main deviation from the comic books:<\/p>\n

Erik Lehnsherr (who was actually born Max Eisenhardt by the by) was not experimented on during the holocaust (at least, not that I remember, correct me if I\u2019m wrong).\u00a0 In a way, his experience was even worse.\u00a0 He was a Sonderkommando.\u00a0 For those who don\u2019t read up on history as a hobby (yeesh, could I get any nerdier?) a Sonderkommando<\/a> was a Jew whose job in the concentration camp was to dispose of the bodies of fellow Jews killed in the gas chambers.<\/p>\n

Yup, that\u2019s bound to fuck you up a bit.<\/p>\n

He later met Charles while working at an Israeli mental hospital\u2026around the time Charles knocked up a girl who had been in a coma.\u00a0 Uhhh yeah\u2026we won\u2019t go into that.\u00a0 Erik does get his hands on some Nazi gold that he uses to fund his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, but that was only after he had teamed up with Charles to defeat Baron Wolfang von Strucker.<\/p>\n

At least they got rid of that slightly slimy look<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As for the other good guys\u2026it’s so funny to me how, in the movies,\u00a0they took the scales and ran with it for Mystique.\u00a0 I\u2019m assuming it\u2019s just an excuse to get away with seeing a hot naked chick while maintaining a PG-13 rating.\u00a0 Mystique did briefly have scales in the comic books when she was exposed to radiation while saving Toad.\u00a0 But the vast majority of the time, she\u2019s just blue\u2026.and clothed\u2026albeit scantily.\u00a0 Her flirtation with Hank in the movie was cute but her true love was a blind, alien-looking chick named Destiny.\u00a0 Jennifer Lawrence is a promising young actress though.\u00a0 I\u2019m super looking forward to seeing her as Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games<\/em> next March<\/a>.\u00a0 Hank McCoy and the whole serum thing was pretty right on.\u00a0 Although I remember Beast turning gray when he first sprouted hair. Nicholas Hoult (the kid from About a Boy<\/em>) has grown into quite the handsome young dude!\u00a0 I liked the sheepish nerd vibe he brought to the character.<\/p>\n

As for Lenny Kravitz\u2019 little girl, Miss Zoe is still honing her acting chops but she did alright.\u00a0 I\u2019m just glad they didn\u2019t show Angel laying eggs or eating her dinner like a fly.\u00a0 Blech.\u00a0 Oh, and she was rescued by Wolverine and brought to Professor X\u2026not found by Cerebro. I already brought up how Havok should not be in the picture yet but I\u2019ll add one more bit.\u00a0 Much like Shaw, Alex has to store up energy in order to be able to send out blasts of plasma.\u00a0 It\u2019s not infinite.\u00a0 So that whole bit about him being in jail because he can\u2019t control himself was definitely manufactured for the film.\u00a0 Sean Cassidy was another puzzling addition for me.\u00a0 He had a whole life as a detective in Ireland and was involved in the whole IRA thing.\u00a0 Banshee was a codename assigned to him by Factor Three who forced him to commit crimes by strapping a headband full of explosives to him.\u00a0 Stylish, right?\u00a0 He was later rescued by Professor X but not before he pissed off his brother, Black Tom Cassidy and lost his daughter, Siryn\u2026all of which happened before he joined the X-Men.\u00a0 I honestly don\u2019t remember much about Darwin, other than him being a ghost for a while, but I\u2019m pretty sure he never got killed off.<\/p>\n

Aaaaaaand\u2026where do I begin with Moira???\u00a0 First off, she is a geneticist, not a CIA agent.\u00a0 Her last name should be Kinross at this point, not MacTaggert.\u00a0 She is Charles first love and helps him found the X-Men and all but in the end she ends up with Banshee.\u00a0 Seriously, my head was spinning with how off her character was.\u00a0 BUT I LOVE Rose Byrne and she did a fantastic job.\u00a0 And damn that girl looks good in a garter belt.<\/p>\n

They chose Sebastian Shaw to be the main villain.\u00a0 It was a good choice.\u00a0 Aside from Magneto, he\u2019s one of the most prevalent villains in the X-Men \u2018verse.\u00a0 Kevin Bacon cracks me up.\u00a0 He\u2019s so good at being a snarky little shit.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t disappoint here even though it\u2019s a little bizarre seeing him as a Nazi.<\/p>\n

Emma and Sebastian sittin' in a reactor K-I-S-S-I-N-G<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Main deviation from the comic books?<\/p>\n

They beefed up his power a bit and I don\u2019t remember him using his power to keep his looks youthful but otherwise they pretty much nailed his billionaire playboy attitude.\u00a0 As far as I know he was never involved with the Nazi\u2019s. He was, however, responsible for the mutant destroying Sentinels.\u00a0 His first battle with the X-Men was during the Dark Phoenix saga.\u00a0 At that point Sage was working for Shaw as a personal assistant while spying on him for Professor X.<\/p>\n

Anyone know how Shaw is connected to Iron Man\u2019s dad Howard Stark?<\/p>\n

Sorry guys, I couldn't find a picture of Moira in the garter belt so you'll just have to settle for Emma. Tough, I know.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

January Jones wouldn\u2019t have been my first choice for Emma Frost but I think she did a pretty good job.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t hugely impressed with the effect of her in her diamond state, but as many a Twilight<\/em> fan can attest\u2026getting those damn diamond effects can be challenging.\u00a0 I remember Riptide releasing little projectile stakes while spinning really fast\u2026not so much for creating tornados and crap.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure why they felt the need to change that, other than to bring down the stealth jet during the climax…which I guess is an ok reason.\u00a0 That devil-looking guy that looks an awful lot like Nightcrawler and uses the same teleportation effect?\u00a0 That would be Azazel.\u00a0 And he looks like Nightcrawler because he\u2019s Nightcrawler\u2019s daddy.\u00a0 Are you wondering why Nightcrawler is blue? That would be because Mystique is his mama\u2026and threw him down a well after he was born.\u00a0 Azazel is biblical and should TECHNICALLY be trapped in an alternate dimension.\u00a0 Thanks to his teleportation skillz he\u2019s able to come here every once in a while for just long enough to knock up a random woman.\u00a0 Which he does.\u00a0 Often.<\/p>\n

It may sound like I\u2019m being critical but these are all details schmetails.\u00a0 I really did LOVE this movie.\u00a0 The Cuban Missile Crisis scene is fantastic and the cameos by Hugh Jackman and Rebecca Romijn were brilliant.<\/p>\n

Now please excuse me while I go drool over James McAvoy some more.<\/p>\n

Yup, still dreamy...<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

4.5 out of 5 sci-fives<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oh Lordy do I love me some X-Men.\u00a0 After Thor, it is probably my favorite comic book series.\u00a0 No offense to Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, etc.\u00a0 I adore you all but I had a particular hard on for X-Men growing up. So I\u2019ll admit it.\u00a0 When I first heard that there was going to be an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[24,28,11],"tags":[442,786,832,1098],"class_list":["post-1576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comics","category-movie","category-reviews","tag-hot-nerd-girl","tag-review","tag-sci-five","tag-x-men-first-class"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hotnerdgirl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hotnerdgirl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hotnerdgirl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hotnerdgirl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hotnerdgirl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hotnerdgirl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1576\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hotnerdgirl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hotnerdgirl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hotnerdgirl.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}