Thursday, June 9, 2011

Movie Review: X-Men First Class

I've experienced a roller coaster of emotions when it comes to the X-Men franchise. X-Men was a good first film for a franchise. I went into it not expecting much and I came away liking the film. That led to pretty high hopes for the second film. X-2 blew me out of the H20. I saw it five times in the theater and it quickly became one of my favorite super hero movies. That led to extremely high hopes for the third film. I left X-Men 3: The Last Stand angry. That film fell way short of my expectations. From there they produced the pathetic spin off Wolverine. That all leads to the prequel X-Men First Class.

I wasn't all that excited about this film...until...until Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 92% approval. Just to put it into perspective X-Men got 82%, X-2 got 88%, Last Stand got 57%, and Wolverine got 37%. Rotten tomatoes is pretty accurate on whether or not a movie is going to stink. So a friend at work tells me that X-Men First Class got 92%. That's crazy. With the percentage that high I got immediately excited about the movie. So excited that I went to a midnight showing.

X-Men First Class is a decent film. It's a pretty good story and a decent attempt to get back to the goodness that was X-Men 1 & 2. The movie was a little slow and I got a little tired. One other problem is that the film doesn't have any of the cool X-Men. When you have mutants like Banshee you need to up the action to make up for your lack of coolness. They didn't. First Class is a decent attempt at getting the franchise back on track but it's still a far cry from X-2.

X-Men First Class is rated PG-13 for some girls in their underwear, an F-bomb, and some action violence. I give it one thumb up.
Rob's Rating System =
Two Thumbs Up - A great movie worth paying full price.
One Thumb Up - A decent attempt and worth seeing at a matinee price.
Thumb to the side - An ok film, but wait for video.
Thumb down - A stinker of a film. Don't waste you life seeing it.

20 comments:

  1. bill (cycleguy)June 9, 2011 at 6:13 AM

    I liked 1 & 2 but was disappointed in 3.  (But they were free DVDs so who can complain?)  I haven't seen 3 since my wife is not into superhero types although she loves DieHard, Bourne, Indy, etc.  Go figure.  This was one of the ones I wanted to see this summer. Reckon I will wait instead of spending my hard earned cash on a one-thumber.  Thanks for saving me bucks.

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  2. Danielle C BozungJune 9, 2011 at 6:37 AM

    I took Nate to see it on Sunday and he LOVED IT!  I did too though, I have to admit.  I liked the historical undertones that made it a little more real for me :)

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  3. brianJune 9, 2011 at 7:09 AM

    waiting on the dollar theatre...been burned by too many superhero movies...have you seen green lantern yet?

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  4. Rob ShepherdJune 9, 2011 at 7:17 AM

    Bill, I am a tough critic. It takes a lot for me to give a movie two thumbs up.

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  5. Rob ShepherdJune 9, 2011 at 7:19 AM

    Danielle, I went with a bunch of friends and many of them loved it as well. You will find that I am a pretty tough critic. I thought it was good but it lacked the action for me to love it

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  6. Rob ShepherdJune 9, 2011 at 7:20 AM

    Brian, Green Lantern hasn't come out yet. I think it comes out a week from tomorrow. I will def see it and then review it.

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  7. Daniel CarmanJune 9, 2011 at 7:28 AM

    I stumbled upon some X Man movie on TV the other night. Jean-Luc Picard was battling some old dude wearing some kooky viking helmet. I hung in there for about 20 minutes, but man was this movie slow moving and kind of dull. Happily American Dad! .... errr .... Masterpiece Theatre was on just a couple of channels away.

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  8. Lauren CoryJune 9, 2011 at 8:47 AM

    yeah i would agree with your rating. it was good. decent. but it definitely moved a little slow at first. but i am a big james mcavoy fan, so i liked it simply because he was in it. but definitely not as good as the first two.

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  9. tylertarverJune 9, 2011 at 11:20 AM

    I tried to sneak in to it during a film festival, I was turned away. But I played it cool like a hamster and acted like I was on my phone, even called the guy "bro". 

    One of my greatest accomplishments. 

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  10. Danielle C BozungJune 9, 2011 at 5:15 PM

    the lack of action is exactly why I DID love it hehe

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  11. SirvhimJune 9, 2011 at 7:08 PM

     Right on brother, one thumber I think is a good call, but perhaps only 4 ratings is a bit limited, maybe consider adding other digits or additional body parts to provide a more precise rating.  I mean, why are thumbs the only body part that get to have an opinion?  What about the back of the knee, I've always thought that area has been unfairly ignored.  Though perhaps that's because it's official name is the very uncool "popliteal fossa", not a cool name like thumb, sometimes we can just be so unfair.

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  12. Rob ShepherdJune 9, 2011 at 11:33 PM

    That was a very funny comment. Who are you? The popliteal fossa is comedy gold.

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  13. Rob ShepherdJune 9, 2011 at 11:33 PM

    Tyler, you are the greatest random person on the entire world wide web.

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  14. Rob ShepherdJune 9, 2011 at 11:34 PM

    I thought he did awesome! Just not good enough to earn a second thumb up.

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  15. Rob ShepherdJune 9, 2011 at 11:37 PM

    Another great comment from Daniel! You should give X-2 a chance. It's really good.

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  16. seekingpastorJune 10, 2011 at 12:13 AM

    I want to see it, I guess. But the super-hero movie that I'm waiting to see is Captain America. One of my favs.

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  17. AdamJune 10, 2011 at 8:04 AM

    The wife and I chose the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie over this one last weekend. I think this one is going to be a Netflix one for me...
    I really enjoyed the new Pirates though. 

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  18. Rob ShepherdJune 10, 2011 at 3:04 PM

    I heard it was pretty good. I didn't like the last two but I'm starting to want to see the new one because of word of mouth.

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  19. Rob ShepherdJune 10, 2011 at 3:05 PM

    Captain America looks amazing! I hope it's as good as it looks.

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  20. DustinJune 13, 2011 at 9:54 AM

    I saw it a week ago and enjoyed it. I'm a sucker for X-men.... :)

    ReplyDelete

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