When I started watching this movie, I thought I had seen it before because it started with the scene of Magneto being taken from his parents at a Nazi death camp. However, it turned out to be a replay of, I suppose the very first X-Men film, but leads to a completely different story arch rather than a re-telling of the origin story.

X-Men: First Class focuses on the first group of mutants. However, it is not the Cyclops/Jean Grey group but X-Force (Havok, Banshee) vs Hellfire Club (Emma Frost, Sebastian Shaw) with Magneto and Professor X mixed in. Those characters are actually pretty interesting and more compelling to me than a big Avengers team-up. Maybe I just like mutants more.

Mystique and the rest of the younger mutants could help make this a kids/teenager movie, but the portrayal of Professor X and Magneto were so great that I didn’t care. While it’s still your typical blockbuster comic movie, I had a lot of fun with this one. Three out of five stars.