If the battle for gay rights is the civil rights battle of our time, which I believe it is, it makes sense that X-Men would be re-invented for our era and our issues. Except you can't just totally swap out one political issue for another. Professor X is Martin Luther King and Magneto is Malcolm X, and the gay rights movement doesn't have an analog for either. So what X-Men: First Class does right where X-Men: The Last Stand went wrong is it finds the right places to insert the gay stuff (no homo) and leaves it out elsewhere. Magneto is still Malcolm X and Professor Xavier is still MLK, and the gay thing is another, added dimension. They're black in different ways, but gay in the same way. Does that make sense?
Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy totally CRUSH IT in this movie, don't they? I think they should get a joint best actor nomination. Seriously. They're a scene where Charles/Professor X (McAvoy) is helping Erik/Magneto (Fassbender) hone his power by accessing different portions of his memory, and that shit is straight-up MOVING. (Fassbender is like Prince or something in that he makes traditionally feminine stuff--like crying, even--seem super masculine. Dude is a one-man gay rights movement, big ups Fassbender!) Earlier, McAvoy goes full season 1 Don Draper on a lady by giving her a speech about evolution that is really about boning, and then a few scenes later goes full season 4 Don Draper, drunkenly mangling the same speech. It's perfect. There's also a scene where Erik/Magneto fucks some German expats up in an Argentinian bar (it eerily recalls a similar and similarly great scene featuring Fassbender in Inglourious Basterds) that is just TOPS, okay? I could watch it forever.
If you haven't seen this movie you really should. I think it might be my favorite movie of the year so far? It is definitely my favorite X-Men movie ever. The only other contender at the top is Bridesmaids. This is Rose Byrne's year, huh? By the way: am I the only person who thinks Rose Byrne is more attractive than January Jones? ("Everyone's a Jackie or a Marilyn"-Peggy Olson. Shut up, Peggy.)
There was one political moment that seemed over the top. Kevin Bacon's villain character mentions the future he foresees for mutants: harassment, hatred, slavery, etc. But when he says "slavery" we cut to a reaction shot from Darwin, played by black actor Edi Gathegi (Laurent in Twilight & New Moon). Really? REALLY!? There's also one CGI shot that seemed like it wasn't ready for primetime: a shot of a boat in water that looked straight out of Titanic II (Maybe it was rushed? I feel like I was just reading about this movie being cast; apparently Matthew Vaughn works quickly. And that goes double if he knocked up January Jones HEYOOOO). There's also a few words that January Jones can't seem to say convincingly, primarily "sugar" and "honey." I'd love to hear her do that old Archies tune. But anyway those are my only complaints. (The rest of the political jokes are spot-on, including one involving Oliver Platt and Nicholas Hoult that is way too great for me to give away.) This movie is good!
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