X-Men: First Class

           X-Men: First Class is a piece of potentially brilliant revisionist history. The film is set during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and follows historical fact until (spoiler alert) the Soviets and Americans decide to both fire upon a common enemy. But what X-Men gains in raising tough questions about us-versus-them ideology, it loses in its inconsistencies in character development and continuity.

            The largest problem with the film is that all of the main characters have unreasonable abilities to do things no human can do in real life. It simply is not realistic. James MacAvoy’s character, Charles Xavier, can for some inexplicable reason talk to others without using his mouth.  Although Michael Fassbender does well in his role as Erik Lensherr, a troubled Holocaust survivor, the script contains unnecessary and unfortunate sequences in which he is able to magically lift submarines from the water and move mammoth satellite dishes with his mind. Furthermore, Jason Flemyng’s appearance as the fiery-skinned, sharp-tailed Satan did not make sense. You cannot have the devil in a film and then have him be a mere supporting character. It distracts from the rest of the movie when he makes periodic appearances with no real significance.

            One scene early in the movie particularly embodies this disappointing problem in the plot. CIA executives are meeting in a boardroom to talk about the problem of impending nuclear war – a scenario that actually happened many times in the Cold War years, and especially during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Matt Craven does a wonderful job playing the head of the CIA, and the other actors portray the sense of fear and urgency well, transporting the audience to the worried world of the 1960s. But then, out of the blue, a woman in the room turns, well, blue. This absurd event did not occur in CIA boardrooms in the 1960s. It is outrageous. The deviations from reality are discontinuities in the plot, which distract from the true point of the film.

            The film did, however have its strong points. Hugh Jackman’s cameo as a man in a bar was spot-on. Jackman, complete with mutton chops and cigar, interpreted the gruff-guy caricature in a whole new light, and while he only appeared on the screen for a few seconds, he seemed to develop a character deeper than the others in the film. The problem with this scene was not Jackman’s acting, but the direction and script-writing. This character did not relate at all to the rest of the characters. He had one line and, however well delivered it was, it did not make sense in the context of the film. It felt like Jackman’s character was meant to be some sort of reference to another story, but due to poor directing, it was impossible to tell who that was.

            If director Matthew Vaughn and his crew had done more research of the political climate of the 1960s, this movie could be outstanding. But Vaughn’s out-of-touch-with-reality directing and writer Ashley Miller’s inconsistent script turn the film into an incoherent piece of unrealistic historical fiction.