Well, this can’t be good.
Writing in The Guardian newspaper in London today, Ben Child throws the first brick at one of this summer’s most eagerly anticipated (by the Fanboys, at least) summer blockbusters: “X-Men, First Class.”
In case you’ve been trapped under something heavy and have been unable to log onto the Interwebs these last few months, then you already know that the flick is an origin story — of sorts. It traces the adventures of mutant good-guy Charles Xavier and proto-bad guy Magneto at the beginning of their careers, before they have their Simon & Garfunkel level fall-out and become sworn foes.
Here’s the germane part of Child’s review:
“X-Men: First Class may be a prequel set in a new era (the early 60s) with a new cast, but it is not nearly as much of a genuine mutation from the norm as might be expected. Nor is it quite as good as some early reviews have suggested.
Whereas Christopher Nolan breezily ignored all the previous Batman films with his genre-defining Batman Begins, Vaughn and screenwriter Jane Goldman’s script is based on a story by Bryan Singer, who made the first two X-Men movies. The film ends up being not so much a radical reinvention of the series as an affirmation of those earlier features: it has their DNA running through its system, and we’re left in no doubt that events are intended to prefigure those we’ve already seen pan out on screen.
Had X-Men: First Class arrived back in 2000, when Singer’s first film hit cinemas, it might have been revolutionary. Arriving as it does in 2011, it feels like a throwback to an earlier, simpler era where audiences were willing to accept cardboard cut-out villains and one-dimensional heroes. It’s the sort of film for which the caveat “it’s only a comic book movie” will be constantly offered in conversation.”
The Cineaste's Lament. 