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"X" plus Why

"X-Men: First Class" is saddled with being not only an origin story but a prequel. It's hard enough to generate suspense when the future of your characters is pre-set - the feeling is less "what will happen?" then "how will it happen?" - but when they have already been featured in a franchise of their own (the original "X-Men" trilogy ran from 2000 to 2006), you'd better think of something to keep the audience entertained (George Lucas, take note).

The script, by Ashley Miller, Zack Stentz, Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn, aims high. After a brief setup in 1944, during which the origins of Erik Lehnsherr (aka Magneto) are revealed in a concentration camp led by a Nazi commander (played by pleasant-surprise Kevin Bacon), the film moves to 1963 and sets the action against the Cuban Missile Crisis - complete with archival footage of JFK. It's an ambitious premise, but with the outcomes of both the characters and the setting so well known, there's not much to sustain the film for its two-plus hour running time.

As usual, it's Magento's story - and his frenemiship with Professor X - that's the most interesting. James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender anchor the film, and ground it, as Xavier and Magneto, respectively. Casting Mr. McAvoy as a young Patrick Stewart (Prof X from the original trilogy) doesn't quite achieve the coup of having Ewan McGregor play a young Alec Guiness, but Mr. McAvoy is such a delightfully watchable actor that he makes Charles Xavier his own. And it's a trip to watch him use pickup lines like, "that's a groovy mutation". Mr. Fassbender, meanwhile, walks away with the film - and all the coolest special effects. His Magneto is so deeply torn, it's almost painful to watch him succumb to his inevitable fate. Faring less well is Jennifer Lawrence (so wonderful in "Winter's Bone") who plays young Mystique as a scorned teenager.

And as with the previous "X" films, "X:FC" falls victim to the need to stuff as many characters as possible into the film (there are also some clever cameos to keep fans of the previous "X-Men" series giggling). With the exception of the nominal leads - Xavier, Magneto, Mystique - the other mutants aren't particularly defined - and in some cases their powers don't make much sense. But that's nothing compared to the human characters. Intentionally or not, "First Class" contains a rather subversive irony: it's the non-mutant characters that are the most cartoonish - the bumbling G-Men, the buffoonish politicians, Oliver Platt's goofy Man in Black.

That leaves our mutated heroes with a bigger threat than nuclear missiles off the coast of Florida: how to balance the serious with the campy (this is a movie about mutant superpowers, after all). For every threatening shot of mushroom clouds, there's a scene of the kids inventing their monikers (Havok, Darwin, Banshee, etc). And for each Strangelove-esque war room sequence, there's a shot of a mysterious building labeled "Covert Russian Headquaters".

It's a delicate balance - and one director Matthew Vaughn ("Kick-Ass") clearly relishes. This isn't a serious franchise reboot on the level of J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek" - it's more of a playful tweaking. And it's hard to take mutant superpowers too seriously. So between serious and campy, the film, much like its Cold War setting, achieves an uneasy peace.