X-Men: First Class & Last Class Chocolate

I did not prepare properly for this particular movie outing.  We had to purchase chocolate at the movie kiosk.  And, as noted previously, we've been showing up on cheap night Tuesdays, since there are so many on the list to see this summer.

Despite the glitches, we enjoyed X-Men:  First Class.  Although I'd seen the previews, I had no idea how it would go over.  Well, it didn't center around Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), so ... But I have to say that the movie pulled off presenting the backgrounds of Xavier (James McAvoy) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender).  Both characters came across as believable and their emotions reached through the screen to the audience, especially during their touching scene on the beach near the end.

Of course, I ended up on Team Magneto.  Xavier, even in college, when pursuing women, seemed such a pansy.  That's not a bad thing, but compared to the complex layers of Magneto, X was a lightweight.

Yeah, I know, it's a comic, but take the relationship between Magneto and Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), for example.  She offers herself up to him and he reacts by agreeing, if she stays in her true form during the encounter.  That spoke much stronger than Xavier's lame pickup lines involving women's genetic quirks.

Now, that's not to say that others will be Team Magneto; somebody I went with totally disagreed.  She immediately took to the genuinely caring Xavier and stuck with him.  So either side is justified in the movie.

And onto the villains, featuring Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) and his sidekick, Emma Frost (January Jones).  Bacon did a great job playing a sadistic Nazi and transitioned nicely into a 1960s Bond-type bad guy.  Frost played the villainous vixen convincingly, and yes, she fit the 60s style Bond bad-girl wardrobe.

Of course, with such a movie, in contemporary times, there has to be CGI, especially for scenes where Magneto lifts whole submarines into the air.  Believable?  Not so much, but hey, it's presented much the same as in the other X-Men installments.  The human reflection and interactions balance it without smothering the audience.

And then there's the cameo with Wolverine.  Wow.  His time onscreen didn't last longer than say, twenty seconds, but the audience went nuts when they--er, we--saw him.  He had one line and that's all he needed.  Perfection.

Overall, the movie exceeded expectations (since I really didn't know what I was in for).  The Wolverine spot brought it over the edge.  From Bacon to Mystique and minor characters like Beast (Nicholas Hoult), the actors worked it.  Costuming and props also did a great job of working the 1940s/1960s vibe.

Ratings:

X-Men:  First Class - 8.5 / 10 - It's a good score, considering the movie doesn't focus on Wolverine (my favourite character).  My views of Magneto and Xavier really turned around.  I'm also looking forward to seeing more movies with Fassbender and Lawrence.  And nice to see Bacon back in form.

Junior Mints - 4.5 / 10 - I couldn't be bothered to them until now, when I have to rate them.  It's really been a long time since I've had to eat such sugar mints.  I've been spoiled on real cocoa chocolate and candies, that's for sure.  These bloody things (I can't really call them mints) burnt my mouth with the low-grade sugar assault.  Never again.  I must stick to smuggling real chocolate into the movies.