Starring: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, January Jones
Plot: The actions of scientist (Kevin Bacon) threatens to bring the world to the brink of nuclear apocalypse. Hope for salvation lies in the combined efforts of Charles Xavier (James McAvoy), Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender) and a top secret team of humans with special qualities. It’s time for the X-Men to graduate.
TM Rating: X-Men: First Class is set 40 years before the first X-Men movie and in many ways has more in common with that film than the subsequent sequels or, thankfully, that ‘other’ X-Men prequel Wolverine (who isn’t in First Class as he wasn’t even a cub when this is set). The first X-Men was a thought provoking and action packed ride that gave us a villain in Magneto (Erik Lehnsherr) whose motives we could sympathise with ““ you can understand when someone who has survived the holocaust gets ‘tetchy’ when they see signs of it happening all over again.
X-Men: First Class finds Charles Xavier and his future nemesis teaming up to fight evil at a period in history when ‘the times they are a-changing’ and the nuclear threat was all too real. It doesn’t quite match up to the quality and intelligence of X-Men, but it runs along at a the pace of an X-Man with superhuman speed; a factor which has plus and minus points. The plus is that it never fails to hold the attention; the minus that moving the plot along at breakneck speed results in casualties relating to the development of some lesser characters. Still fans of the X-Men series and intelligent actioners should enjoy it.
This fantastical tale of how the X-Men began might not be exactly first class, but it’s close.
7/10 ““ A darker and sexier return to form for the X-Men series thanks in part to the efforts of class acts, James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender…plus it has ever reliable Kevin Bacon and, as the sweetest cherry on the cake, Mad Men’s January Jones.
Screening Times: 6.30pm daily
Tickets: €6.50 Buy YourTickets Here
