X-Men: First Class

You have got to be kidding me.

No memorable jokes?

Magneto: "Maybe when you're older."Mystique: "How about now?"

That was absolutely classic. And passionless? Did we watch different movies? This is Kevin Bacon's most nuanced acting in a long time. And James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender turn in absolutely stellar performances, especially any scene they're in together.

Also, I'd love to hear what your definition of a "striking image" is.

****minor spoilers after this point****

Also, you totally missed the point with the "enslaved" comment. It wasn't just "somebody" who said that, it was the main antagonist of the movie, Sebastian Shaw. When Shaw (Bacon's character) said "enslaved" he looked directly at Darwin (the "black guy" you so offhandedly mentioned). There's a lot of nuance there, just as there's a lot of nuance in the scene between Magneto and the two German officers. Shaw (Bacon's character...just helping you keep things straight) is fully capable of using emotional manipulation to get people to do what he wants. When the movie is taking place, civil rights is still a HUGE issue. So naturally, he would look to "the black guy" and the "hispanic girl" as sympathizers - they are the most obvious targets for his attempt at persuasion. They would know exactly what it's like to be hated for no rational reason, and Shaw being a reasonably intelligent person would pick up on that. Also, given the fact that his two main sidekicks are an Asian-looking badass and a red guy that can teleport, I'm pretty sure that racism was not in the character design.

Also, in an aside, the entire tone of that comment tells me that you must be white. As an intelligent black person, I'm more than capable of deciding what offends me on my own, thanks.

Lastly, identifying the relationship between Erik and Charles as "bromantic" is hilariously inerudite. You may have missed it while texting or stepping out to use the bathroom, but Erik makes it clear to Charles a few times that their relationship is a friendship of convenience, and on at least two occasions their methods clearly show their differences (when they catch up with Emma Frost, for example).

I just looked it up and Karina is right, mutants were not responsible for the Cuban Missile Crisis. Thank you for writing this article. It is about time that Hollywood is exposed for its anti-mutant bias. Spread the word, Karina. And don't listen to these idiots blasting you for speaking the truth. It was homo sapiens who performed sick Nazi experiments. Not homo sapien superior! Homo sapiens shipped nukes across hemispheres. Not homo sapien superior! Jesus, people, mutants have enough problems without all of this GOT DANG revisionist history! Keep your head up, Karina. These people blasting you would blame all of humanity's problems on mutants if they could. It is racism plain and simple.

I really like all X-men movies and I've watched all of them. I don't know why many people criticize it negatively. But I can't blame them it is how they see it. We have different perspectives.

Nadine ThomasHow to get a girl to like you

This movie was great and I don't understand why so many people hate it. Yes, I understand that this isnt the true first class, that was the first thing I noticed, and yes they made some confusing choices (like how did Emma get here if wolverine supposedly saved her from the island?) but if you look at it as a movie all it's own I found it amazing with great action scenes and a very memorable cameo.

What if Mengele-style Nazi human experimentation was actually, like, part of a world-domination plan perpetrated by a mutant (Kevin Bacon)? What if the Cuban Missile Crisis was actually, like, part of a world-domination plan perpetrated by that same mutant?

Yes such a farther leap than What if there were people out there with mutant powers you ignorant fuck!

F U C K Y O U B I T C H

too much revealed in one film, action and information squashed into one thing, no jokes, terrible script lacking some dramatic irony eg, 'mutant and pround, lets give ourselves names i call myself mystique, we wil call u magneto and X'. overtly fictional sudden switch of sides, depicting magneto as a weak mutant yet in the sequels he is the key figure. its' too plain oversimplifying the story, the absence of william striker is a blow to the story, a sudden undebated decision by US gvt to destroy mutants doesnt explain the complicated relationship between mutants and human as well displayed in the other movies. the choice of mcAvoy for professor was not a good one.

Movies that have no passion (except for making money) have turned out to be the number one export product of hollywood in the last few years, so that's obsolete. But if you can't remember the one cameo joke i'm thinking of right now, you haven't watched the movie and I envy you for not having to work for your money.

The first installment was hardly witty. (Stylish is a very YMMV thing. Are we talking the films visuals or story.) It was rather flat and seemed to get by mostly on star power and Hugh Jackman's charisma.. The first movies idea of wit were lines like "What happens when ligtening strikes a Toad? The same thing that happens to everything else." This was the one line kept from a Joss Whedon script. Look at Joss's worst BTVS scripts, you can generally find lines better than that.

It was the second one that had the wit and style and some actual characterization. Nightcrawler for example had more depth and personality than most of the originals. The original movies did little to show why Scott Summers or Orroro Monroe are popular characters with X-Men base.

I bet the author used to be a nice, amiable girl, liking everything she saw.. but at one point she probably realized that bitter mindless rejection made her look sophisticated and an accomplished critic. When did they start passing such ignorant, unreasonably condescending rants as movie reviews? It doesn't bother me if miss Longworth is a wannabe twat, I'm angry that Village Voice didn't hesitate to make her poison public. Boo

There are several arguably "striking" images in X-Men: First Class, most of which are included in the film's trailers. Also, the movie's cameo isn't by an old school X-Man, technically speaking.

Ms. Longworth probably panned the movie without ever seeing it herself. Critics do it ALL THE TIME!

Good review here. The problem was that it was two separate movies welded together.

http://bofham.blogspot.com/201...

Karina Longworth wouldn`t know a good action movie if it bit her in her stanky arrogant ass.Stick to writing reviews in the village voic3e that you are more equipt to.Need i say what they r.As for your review of x-man.Just like you in your own skin.Seems like even a simple action movie confused you to the pooint that you had to bad mouth it.Well i personally would expect nothing less from of your non existent talent.To put it in terms your simple mind can understand.you suck.

This critic has never been laid

This movie sucked so hard, it extracted I.Q. from my body.

And by grouchy negativity, I mean such like that of 'magnetic eye' below.

This movie was great. Neither of us are puritan comic book lovers to back up some grouchy negativity, so I don't know what your problem is.

I'm a comicbook-turned-movie fanatic but I do get what you're saying. When you said that there was no memorable moment in this installment, I couldn't agree more. Maybe we just expected more from this. Everything was good but not necessarily great. I also liked the first installment better than this one. I don't hate this prequel at all though, I think it was just okay. It think it should have been more of a 68% in rotten tomatoes than 87%

"First Class is dumbass, single-trick revisionist history". Karina, great line love it.

As an avid comic book collector over the last 35 years, I always use the comic books as a bench mark to measure these so called adaptations up against and XFC falls extremely short of being a genuine X-Men film.

I also expect some degree of realism in film adaptations as portrayed in the books. The notion of super heroes struggling with the human condition and living in our society is what drew me to comics as a kid.

Reading some quotes by well known screenwriters recently that said ( translating ) a written work to the medium of film is hard work but not impossible. It's heartening to know there are writers out there willing to translate and NOT merely adapt a work for the screen.

I find it hard to accept a brand new alternate re-imaging as paying tribute to a popular comic book series when this film neither resembles or respects the original source material. "First Class" may indeed be a super hero movie, BUT it is definitely NOT an X-Men comic book movie by any stretch of the imagination.

Matthew Vaughn & Fox Abattoirs may have succeeded with their Fox Men, but let me reiterate it is NOT the X-Men from the comic books. A faithful comic book movie adaptation should at least try to resemble and respect the books it claims it is based on. This is a terrible adaptation if one can call it an adaptation at all.

Overall X-Men:First Class / Worse Class / First Pass is a pretentious cinematic blunder and a cringeworthy experience. One can only imagine the uproar if such a disrespectful treatment was thrust upon "The Justice League", "The Avengers" or even Batman & Superman.

Maybe one day when MARVEL STUDIOS acquire the film rights to their characters, we will see a genuine and faithful adaptation of the X-Men and perhaps if they ever revisit the origins based on the comic book history, they will use the original five founding members of the FIRST CLASS.

Your reviews suck, plain and simple. You should just quit your job and go into something else. Being a movie critic is not for you.

ya she just bashed green lantern. lady if you dont like super hero movies, dont review them

Wow lady, u seem like u have a major stick up ur backside. I haven't seen this movie yet, but everyone I know who has says its awesome. It sounds like you just got dumped, and perhaps your ex liked X-Men? Lighten up. Its a freakin' comic book movie, and supposedly one of the best ones yet. I'm going to see it, and if its amazing like everyone else says, than you are seriously a sad human being. Stop being a critic if your miserable life gets in the way of your professional opinion. Jeeze!

I respect your opinion, but I disagree with you on a all your points. I'm not going to go over our differences, but I want to draw your attention to your last sentence. "Lacking a single memorable joke or striking image..." For me, Kevin Bacon's line, "...Adapt to this," was not only funny, but equally horrifying. That scene, if you watch Darwin, was so shocking that I couldn't even breath. Maybe you left the theater to go to the bathroom, or maybe didn't see the film at all, because I can't understand how you can claim to not remember that scene afterwards. That point, that situation, is one of the key turning points of the film. If you missed it, I highly suggest you watch the movie again and this time pay more attention.

If there really are no jokes or striking images then you have no sence of humor... The best joke and stiking image of the movie was when wolverine shows up unintetionally and blows off charles and erik. You really don't know. X-men if you did'nt catch that joke

karina logworth your review sucks! what film was you watching? was a great film as a prequeal to the first 3 films. yes none of the characters are really the same as the comic books, but if your expecting that then you'd be dissapointed in all marvel films. seems like you have a dislike for the director and the fact that he has women portrayed in a slighty sexual way. but then all female super heroes are portrayed this way. i suggest you stop reviewing these type of films if you find them so bad.

You would all be mad at the world too if you looked like Karina.

I guess I just don't really understand where this reviewer is coming from. There were jokes in previous X-Men films, but they were never the focus or, as far as I'm aware, the primary draw for anyone.

I also don't really understand why it was even necessary to mention it was "revisionist" history. The state of education in America is poor, to be sure, but there aren't members of the audience who will truly think that mutants saved the world from nuclear Armageddon. Once you start including shape shifting and dragonfly women, your belief should be appropriately suspended.

The plot is silly, even 'dumbass,' but weren't the other four movies equally silly? I am glad that the portrayal of the women in this movie was mentioned, as I found it troubling, and this would have made for an interesting paragraph or two all on its own. But there doesn't seem to be much here. Maybe this is meta, meant to reflect a movie that the reviewer feels doesn't have "much there," either?

The review suggests the film is poor, but not really why it's poor. I'm not sure what purpose it serves, and I can't even imagine what kind of rabid fanboy comments it got in return (I could look, but who has the energy? Apparently I do, since I've written a silly, long comment about a piece of entertainment, to the benefit of no one. Still not reading the fanboy reactions, though. I have standards, in lieu of a life. Then again, I enjoyed this movie, so maybe one could argue about the quality of my standards).

That's a terrible review. Poor journalism.

Anyone that thought this film was good obviously does not know the first thing about X-Men. This film was F**&$^% atrocious, the acting was sub par, and that is a compliment. The writing for the story was terrible and they butchered every characters personality, even as younger versions of themselves they were poor interpretations. The special effects left something to be desired (every mutant flight scene), if you are going to see this film as a comic fan, expect to be disapointed; if you're going to see it for mindless actiona nd a clusterf*&^% of a story this is the film for you.

Karina longworth u suck. U should quit ur job as a movie critic cause u suck. This movie was amazing

Caught this last weekend and was disappointed. McAvoy and Fassbender were good; however, the female actresses were all disappointing. January Jones and Zoe Kravitz - dreck. Jennifer Lawrence - merely mediocre (I wish it had been Lindsey Lohan). Also, what's up with killing the black guy first? I thought we were in 2011.

So,.... I seldom see summer action movies, and on rare occasion find the one or two films that aren't totally mindless, If its an entertaining experience, I feel good about the couple of hours that I spent in the theatre. Criticism is subjective by nature, and I do not share the reviewer's opinion that this was "dum@#*ss revisionist" material. There were some revisionist historical elements, but they were a small part of an ACTION movie! I think this whole line of criticism came from the fact that timelines and origins of the comic characters were revised. Comic book stories do it to themselves all the time.

Perhaps I was asleep during the part where there was Bay of Pigs footage(maybe it really was there), but Bay of Pigs was not in any way shape or form related to this story. I've seen this in a couple of reviews, and maybe think a younger generation of writers need a history lesson.