X-Men: First Class (2011)

So, I watched X-Men:  First Class.  I guess technically, as a movie, removed from the comic, it was a good enough movie.  But, I am unable to separate the years of comic book reading from the movie.  I did have problems with the plot as well so on to the review.

Plot-I have no doubt that there are people that exist that would love to see the world burn.  I don't doubt this.  But to have Sabastian Shaw, a very wealthy womanizer, be the person that wants to see the world burn doesn't make sense.  For whatever reason, he thinks all mutants will survive nuclear annihilation and start a new world. Even if they were able to survive the nuclear blasts and fallout, they would inherit a dead world.  They also has a character named Darwin that has the ability to adapt to conditions around him to survive.  In order to establish Shaw's power we get to see how Darwin can't adapt to everything regardless of the fact that it was established that he could.  He was also the one black guy in the movie.  Yes, the black man dies.

Acting-  I can't fault the movie here.  The acting was pretty good.  Well, I didn't care for the constipated Professor X, but everyone else was pretty good and I would like to see them in a real X-Men movie.

Characterization-  The X-Men are almost 50 years old.  They have a 50, oft times convoluted, history, but they have a history.  The comics have epic story arcs that are critically acclaimed.  I understand that they wanted to do something original and I am not opposed to someone doing that, but why mess with the characters.  I mean, they put characters in the wrong place in time lines.  Alex Summers is the brother of Cyclops.  Having him as a 20 something in the 60s means he is 40 years older than his older brother.  That is just one small example.  They took 50 years of characterization and continuity and crapped all over it.

Some people will say that the first X-Men movie did the same.  To a degree, it did.  But that was a different time and I think folks were just excited to see the X-Men  on the big screen.

Overall, it was an okay movie if you separate it from comics.  As a comics fan, I just felt cheated.  I wanted to take a shower after watching the movie.