If the words of director Matthew Vaughn are anything to go by, the form-shifting, mutant men and women with one single incredible personal power that differentiates them from the others are in for a rollicking ride on the turnstiles as long as comic book superheroes rule. “If introducing the major characters in X-Men: First Class was the difficult part, the next few films would be joyrides,” he said and how right he could turn out to be. As the introductory prequel to the box office blowback franchise, the celluloid adaptation of the Marvel comic sensation makes for an awesome, prosaic and bat-your-eyelid-and-miss-the-fun adventure, albeit with a stupendously genuine historical context.
The film rearranges the characters to build them to their present forms, providing a wrenching account of the relationship between friends-turned-foes Professor X (the progenitor of X-Men, convincingly played by James McAvoy) and Magneto (the creator of the Brotherhood of Mutants). Running through the narrative is a blatantly undisguised yet remarkably muted reference to the non-acceptance of difference that has characterized human society. It cleaves in place the fact that mankind has historically been unkind to those who are different. Exemplified with stark ingenuity in the constant inner battle waged by the blue-hued mutant Raven who walks around in her human form just so that she is accepted by humans till Erik Lensherr or Magneto (a utterly brilliant Micheal Fassbender as the wronged, brooding, monosyllabic avenger) as he will finally be called, walks into her life and proposes an alternative life—that of a blue-formed, rough-skinned young mutant, her original form, the way she is, the way she would always be. Or the super-smart, six-toed Hank (Beast) who develops an antibiotic fix for his difference, all for the sake of acceptance. Unfortunately for the nerd, the experiment goes wrong, leaving in its wake a faux-toothed, dark blue, hairy Neanderthal, a visage that mankind would find all the more difficult to accept. This allusion to difference and its acceptance runs through the film concluding in the difference of opinion that emerges between Professor X and Magneto over joining hands with mankind or raising hackles to fight the marauding humans—the real enemies of the world of mutants, mirthless humans who distinguish and discriminate on the basis of form, colour and appearance.
The film is a spectacular dash to the beginning of the saga and unfolds with a young Erik bending drawers, tables and book racks in Herr Schmidt’s office who shoots down his mother in cold blood to make Erik unleash his metal-bending powers. Across national boundaries, a teenage Charles Xavier (Professor X) meets a young Raven who appears to him, of course, in human form. Years later, as Erik searches high and low for his mother’s killer, Professor X, fresh from the success with his PhD, is sought out by the CIA which is convinced that a marauding mutant, Sebastian Shaw (previously Herr Schmidt [Kevin Bacon at his menacing best]) is hell-bent on a Third World War for the complete annihilation of mankind so that mutants could hold fort on earth. The Professor and the avenging angel meet as the world is at the cusp of a nuclear war, with the United States and USSR stationing missiles across the Cuban peninsula, one intent on helping the humans come out of the crisis and the other mind-numbingly immune to everything else but revenge for his mother’s death. A group of young mutants with extraordinary powers is their last hope to stop Shaw from executing his sinister plan. Shaw’s death at the hands of Erik is only the beginning of the end. As Professor X prefers to side with the humans, Erik opts out to battle them—the race he terms as the real enemies—as Magneto!
