Transformers: Dark of the Moon

*****
Four Stars Out of Five

Sorry I've been away for a while, ladies and germs. It's been a relatively busy summer for me, what with weddings, shitty movies, decent movies, disappointing movies, good comics, bad comics, music, and other less-important facets of life. Frankly, I've been coasting by a bit whilst I deal with the hugely personal loss of the NBA now that the Finals are over. It's been tough, thanks for asking, but I'm coping with it thanks to WWE and Netflix. 

I almost wrote reviews for both Super 8 and Green Lantern, but I found it to not be worth my time. Sadly, I didn't have much to say about Super 8, as it was a good movie, but I felt a little disappointed in it. I felt it could have been much more than it was, but I still enjoyed it. The review would have been boring to write, and even worse, boring to read. I would never put my faithful audience (of one) through that. Green Lantern, on the other hand, was just the most mundane, boring, disappointing thing I've seen in quite some time. The movie cost $300 million to make, and it didn't show. At all. It was just campy and ineffectual, which is lame, because I'm a big fan of Green Lantern, and I wanted to see the movie be a success. Oh well.


Anyway, Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Well, before I really get going on this bad boy, I'm going to digress for a moment to bitch about the "fans" which will crucify this movie because it "raped their childhoods" or some stupid melodramatic shit like that. Already people are vilifying Michael Bay for making a shitty movie that looks good but has no plot at all.

Give. Me. A. Fucking. Break.


I wonder if all these fans recognize that the only reason their Transformers cartoon from the '80's exists was for the sole purpose of selling a veritable fuckload of toys.To expect high cinema from a franchise that was created to sell as many toys as possible is not only naive, it's foolish and sad.


I get that it's harder to be a geek today than ever before, because everyone that made fun of geeks for reading comic books in school are now shelling out their hard-earned cash to watch movies based on the characters they made fun of us for loving growing up. I get it. Trust me, I have a hard time believing that a bro whose wardrobe consists of Ed Hardy regalia and has never opened a comic book in his life can enjoy The Dark Knight in the same capacity as I do, but I could really give a shit less. I think that's what it's all about at the end of the day - geeks feel like they've been betrayed and that their secret club of outcasts has been invaded due to all these things that have been created for mass consumption. But get the fuck over it. Without regular people shelling out their money for these movies, they would not exist. The geek community just isn't big enough to sustain hundred-million-dollar-plus franchises; there needs to be regular Joe's in the theaters in order for these movies to even exist. Sorry, but that's how it is. Either stop watching these movies that you've already decided to hate, or learn to accept what is out there, and enjoy it for what it is. And, in the case of Transformers: Dark of the Moon, that means accepting an awesome action movie that's low on characterization and incredibly high on amazing special effects and a greatest-hits-collection of balls-out action sequences.


So, rant over. Now, for the real review, I s'pose.


Dark of the Moon opens with the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. Thank God for revisionist history! Turns out, the whole space race of the 60's was due to the discovery of something landing on the moon. Turns out, that something was a Cybertronian and a bunch of other weird shit that, frankly, makes kinda-sorta sense, but isn't all that important to the overall plot. The major plot revolves around getting a fuckload of robots in downtown Chicago for a good old fashioned donnybrook to decide that fate of the world, or some shit like that.


Meanwhile, after this opening - that is surprisingly well-handled, minus a couple of fishy CGI appearances from JFK and Nixon - we move on to see Sam (Shia LaBeouf) living with his hot British girlfriend, Carly (Rose Huntington-Whitley, a former Victoria's Secret model and future DiCaprio conquest, I'm guessing) in DC. He was dumped by Mikaela (Megan Fox, who isn't around in this flick) for reasons never truly mentioned. They survived two (count 'em, two!) alien invasions as a couple, only to have the relationship fizzle out. What a bitch! Either way, his new girlfriend is cute, and loaded, and has a sexy accent, so that's cool. He's living off of her income, as he's a recent college graduate, and has yet to find a job.


There's actually a pretty interesting subplot with Sam here, as he's struggling to be a man accepted among the people whose lives he's saved twice, and he clearly misses being important. I mean, it's gotta be hard to live a normal 9-to-5 existence after you have a giant alien robot for a first car, and shit. I get it, and LaBeouf is entertaining and endearing enough to continue to make Sam a fun character. But still, nobody is paying the entrance fee because they're dying to know what Sam is up to. Nope, they all want to see big fucking robots fucking shit up nicely.


The Autobots, meanwhile, are working in cahoots with the U.S. government, looking for any remaining Decepticons, and protecting American liberty, or something. They are attacked in Ukraine by a giant centipede-like Decepticon, and the cat gets let out of the bag, as the Autobots learn that there was a Cybertronian space craft that landed on the moon in the '60's. Optimus heads up to the moon and retrieves the robot up there, and it turns out to be Sentinel Prime, an Autobot from Cybertron who left the planet amidst their civil war to supposedly find a new planet. He's resuscitated, and a bunch of other shit happens which leads to Decepticons getting their hands on some of the shit from the moon which creates a space bridge. Ultimately, they want to use said space bridge to bring Cybertron to the Earth and start over again. The only thing standing in their way? A bunch of badass Autobots and some hardcore American soldiers, and Sam and his purty girlfriend.


Listen, the plot is less confusing than Revenge of the Fallen (I still don't really know what the fuck that movie was about... an old robot wants to do something with the Pyramids in Egypt, or something), but it's still pretty damn convoluted considering the movie is really just an excuse to watch giant alien robots duke it the fuck out for two-plus hours. There are certainly a lot of plotholes, but it's nothing that ruined my enjoyment of the movie. I just want to be entertained by these movies, not scratch my head over the great moral quandaries of our time. I am entirely okay with a shoestring plot that pushes us from one action sequence to the next, so long as the proceedings are brisk and entertaining. Thankfully, much of the stupid humor from the first two movies are gone, although there are still moments of head-scratching stupidity, but at least there are no leg-humping robots this time around, and John Turturo's character has had his insanity-dial knocked down to a healthy four, when in the last two it was up to about 19.


Sadly, the so-fucking-racist-they-might-as-well-be-wearing-blackface robots Skids and Mudflaps are nowhere to be seen this time around. That's right, I said sadly. I loved those two offensive shits! I am most assuredly not black, and I wholeheartedly understand anyone who might be offended by the two characters in Revenge of the Fallen, but I am a huge fan of awkward situations spurred on by awkward attempts at legitimate humor, so I loved the little shits. I don't believe that they were consciously being racist with the robots, but they sure as shit were, and I got a kick out of them. I will never forget watching Revenge of the Fallen in theaters, and noticing an audible gasp from half the theater when one of the two robots proclaims, "We don't read much." The disgust in the theater was absolutely palpable, and I loved it for some strange reason. Also, there are no robot scrotums this time 'round, which I'm also kind of sad about. Michael Bay, a man who cares not for the word 'restraint,' somehow exercises some in this flick, and while it does provide for an overall more coherent movie, it robs me of my precious awkward humor, and for that... I'm a little pissy about.


I know this review sounds like I'm shitting on the movie, but really, I absolutely loved it. It's just impossible to take these movies too seriously, and I'm going to enjoy the ridiculousness of it all as opposed to being stuck up my own ass. All I wanted were great action sequences, some cheap laughs, and awesome 3D presentation. I got all three. The action was great, as always, and Optimus Prime and his Autobot cohorts really kick some ass this time around. Even though the plot is kinda silly, the Decepticons are actually threatening, and they kill a lot of innocent people (in scenes slightly reminiscent of War of the Worlds). There is actually something palpable at stake here, and even if it is eye-rollingly stupid, it does give the film some sort of heft, of some type of consequence to what's going on.
 
Once the action shifts to Chicago, everything really amps up. The last hour is essentially one extended action set piece which is just beautiful to observe. It's fucking crazy. Buildings get torn apart, robots get murdered, people are dissolved, Leonard Nimoy's voice argues with Hugo Weaving's voice, Sam Witwicky practices parkour, and some soldiers glide through downtown Chicago like they're flying squirrels. The wingsuit scene is absolutely mindblowing, and is seriously worth the price of admission. Watching the sequence in 3D gave me a touch of vertigo, and I was astonished to see this in action; to know how it was filmed only makes it all the more impressive (look it up on youtube. It's insane!). I hate 3D, but I will say that if you do not see this movie in 3D, you're doing yourself a true disservice. It is at least as visually amazing as Avatar, and that is saying something.


So, there you have it. I loved the movie. It was outrageous, over-the-top, gratuitous, awesome, fun, and completely unnecessary. It is absolutely an American piece of entertainment, and you could do a helluva lot worse for entertainment over the 4th of July weekend. I could say some obligatory thing about how the real fireworks this July 4th are at Transformers: Dark of the Moon, but I will spare you from such silly cliches. 


If you liked the first two, you'll love the third one. And if you hated the first two, well, you've already made up your mind about this one, haven't you?


Me, I'm comfortable enough with my own immaturity to love watching robots battle each other senseless for a few hours.

The 2011 NBA Champions Are Not the Miami Heat...

It's the Dallas Mavericks!

And, boy, am I happy with that. As a troubled Cavaliers fan, I had to deal with a year-long lashing from damn near everybody I know. I heard it all, from the uninformed chumps giving me shit, and justifying Lebron's "punk move" of "The Decision" to others playfully jabbing my dedication to a hurting franchise. The moment Lebron announced he was shipping off to Miami, I proclaimed that I would never stop loving my Cavaliers, but now I was also a fan of 29 teams in the NBA. I didn't care who won, so long as it wasn't the Miami Heat.

As it turns out, I got my wish in the form of a rejuvenated Dallas Mavericks squad who quietly put together a highlight reel of "Y'know-these-guys-are-good-enough-to-win-the-whole-thing" throughout the playoffs. I've always loved Dirk Nowitzki - it's kind of hard for an unathletic white boy like me to not support a tall unathletic white man in a sport dominated by athletic freaks - so it just happens to be a happy coincidence for me that the team I so badly wanted to get beat was beaten by one of the few teams I actually wanted to see win the championship.

It's great that Dirk got his revenge against the Heat, the team that beat him in the 2006 NBA Finals, but beating the three-headed monster of Lebron-Wade-Bosh has cemented Dirk's place in "Bad-Ass Heaven," right alongside MJ, Mike Tyson, Carl Weathers, and Clint Eastwood. He, frankly, did things on the court in the Finals this year that simply shouldn't be done. No, there were no crazy high-flying antics like MJ's turning a dunk into a layup in mid-air, but the shots he hit, the comebacks he orchestrated, the leadership he showed, and the dedication to win are what NBA Legends are made of. Dirk has finally exited the long-dreaded "Great Player Without A Ring" circle - g'bye, Chuck and Karl! - and has taken his place alongside Alpha Dog Champions like MJ, Shaq, Kobe, and Duncan. Nobody can doubt that this guy was THE player this postseason, and nobody can even begin to question that his team earned the championship through great play and the old classic "Never-say-die" attitude. Dirk won the Finals, and the Finals MVP, on his terms, doing his things, and kicking everyone else's ass in his way. It was, simply, inspiring.

Unfortunately, a lot of that is going to go unnoticed by the masses, because the sexier story is that the Miami Heat failed. I am going to plead guilty to that as well, because now I am going to talk about their failure and just how much I enjoyed watching it all.
It's hard to describe how much I enjoyed watching this. I almost feel bad about it; I certainly feel like something is wrong with me for delighting in the professional failure of someone else, but I suppose that is just the nature of sports. It's logically illogical - it elicits responses in us that don't make sense, for reasons that are ridiculous, yet we still feel them anyway. I vividly remember last July, as I was wearing my Lebron jersey over top of my Lebron MVP shirt, watching "The Decision," and then being shit on as he announced he was taking his talents to South Beach. I dejectedly took both the jersey and shirt off, and unlike many of my fellow Cavaliers fans, I didn't burn them in a mass effigy to the basketball gods. Rather, I took all my Lebron regalia and put it into a box and gave it to Goodwill. I figured there was a certain irony to giving up all that stuff to a place named "Goodwill," as Lebron had certainly wasted any of the good will he had built up with me. Years of not missing a Cavs game, watching in awe as he exploded for 48 points against the Pistons in '07, going bat-shit insane in Seattle when he hit the game-winning three against the Magic in the 2009 playoffs, supporting him through his choke-job against the Celtics, all gone in an instant when he betrayed my team.

He wasn't dead to me, and I never wished him bodily harm (well, not really, I may have muttered a few, "I hope he blows his fuckin' ACL"s every now and then, but never seriously). But I wanted him to lose every game ever because not only was he not on my team anymore, he shit all over it. He left my favorite franchise in a hole, with no chance to better itself because he had to be a prima donna and be the last one of the coveted free agent class to make his announcement. He just had to be the "Belle of the Ball," because he's Lebron James, and that's what Lebron James does. He made incredulous demands to the franchise, and every step of the way, they bowed to the "King," in some twisted version of "Pretty Girl dates Regular Guy," in which the Regular Guy does everything he can in order to keep the Pretty Girl from leaving him. Turns out, the Pretty Girl left anyway. But not before ensuring that the Regular Guy was, for all intents and purposes, impotent for the forseeable future. It's one thing to break our hearts, but to do so to a fanbase that knows heartbreak better than anyone, and to also ensure that no improvements can be made, just seemed malicious. I doubt that it was; I don't think Lebron James thinks in that way, I think he just worries about himself, which I suppose is fine, but still sucks. But it definitely felt that way, and for that, I will never root for him again. I'm sure he'll get over it, but he's not getting any more of my money - no Lebron shoes for me, ever, no Lebron memorabilia at all, thanks, see ya, dick.

So, he was gone. In Miami. Whatever.

Wait, they're having a party? They haven't even played a fucking game yet!

And that's where the real hate started to build. Lebron James was always polarizing, but when he started celebrating with his new team before anything was won ("Not one, not two, not three..."), then lots of non-Cavs fans started to take notice. His dickish, immature attitude started to spread to his teammates. The things he said and did were amplified, because now everyone expected him to be great constantly, and to be the kind of guy MJ was - a killer on the court, and a perceived sweetheart off of it - but he wasn't. He was still just an immature kid who said and did stupid shit.

It's hard for me, and many other people, to follow a sport so closely and not start to get a feel for who the players we watch really are. I know a lot of people who watch basketball, but not like I do, and don't have the same feelings towards Lebron as I do. That's fine, but when you spend three to four hours a night watching basketball for eight months out of the year, and spend another hour or so reading about the league at large, you start to connect to certain players and dislike others. Lebron is certainly in the latter camp for me now, because, again, he's not on my team, and I dislike his actions. Nevermind the fact that he proved to be a sidekick and not a superduperstar - watch these Finals and tell me otherwise. You can't. You just can't. He started douchily tweeting about karma when the Cavs lost by 45 points to the Lakers, he started mocking other players, and he beat up on the bad teams while routinely laying eggs against the good ones.

He became a villain in the nation's eyes, even if he didn't see it himself. Then, it seemed like he was enjoying the villain role, which could have been cool for me as a sports fan, if I thought for a minute he could sustain it. Guys like Isiah Thomas are suited for the villain role, assholes who want to eat your heart for breakfast and just win. Lebron James wants to be an icon, a billionaire, so his heel turn is just another calculated move that backfired on him. As the playoffs began, he started talking about how he didn't care what people thought of him, and was going to let his play do the talking. That would have been fine if, y'know, he didn't fucking TALK ABOUT IT ALL THE DAMN TIME. If you watched closely enough, I swear you could see him trying to figure out why he is so hated. It would be sad if it weren't so pathetic. He is a man who is accustomed to being told he is great, whose image is so manicured that it's perfectly inauthentic to anyone who pays attention. Think Paris Hilton except a basketball player, and you're on the right track.

Then, I started to get hopeless. The Heat were literally destroying their opponents in the Playoffs. 76ers? Check. Celtics? I really wanted old-school ball to prevail, but it wasn't meant to be. Bulls? Too young and inexperienced... And Lebron manhandled them. The Mavericks were the last obstacle, and nobody believed they stood much chance against the might juggernaut of Lebron-Wade-Bosh. I picked the Mavs in seven games, more out of a sense of hatred towards the Heat than firm belief in the Mavs. But still, I felt if there was one team that could beat the Heat, it was the Mavs, because the Heat do such a tremendous job of packing the paint defensively, and are so good in the open court, but the Mavs don't score a lot in the paint, and have a great defense once they get set up.

Game Two is when I finally believed. Like, "Holy-shit-they-can-actually-win-this." Because the Mavs just didn't quit, they kept going. And the Heat, the immature, fickle bunch that they are, just get lost when they're not destroying their opponents.

It's like Mike Tyson used to say, "Everyone's got a plan until they get punched in the face." Fuck, that should be the epitaph for the Heat's 2010-2011 season, as they caved in as soon as the Mavs landed one on their proverbial kisser. Like real champions, the Mavs didn't expect to win; they knew they had to earn it. They knew they were the underdogs, and pushed themselves to prove everyone wrong. They wanted it more, plain and simple.

Which is quite telling when examining Lebron's career, especially this Finals series. When Lebron left Cleveland to go to Miami, it seemed to be an implicit confession that he did not want to earn it on his own. He wanted, like so many young, immature screwheads, to have greatness handed to him. He didn't want to work to be the best, he just wanted the spoils of being the best. What better way to do that than to join up with a couple of all-stars? You could tell, again, if you paid attention to the games and the player's body language, in Game Four that Lebron was screwed. He played a shitty game, but he looked disinterested, like he would rather be anywhere else in the world than in that pressure cooker of a situation. Again, this is fine for most people, but if you want to be the best player in the world, if you have "Chosen 1" tattooed across your back, and you refer to yourself as "King," well then you gotta want that. You gotta crave that, like Dirk did. You have to be able to handle the scrutiny, criticism, and difficulties of those situations if you want to be champion.

Dan Gilbert, the owner of the Cavs, tweeted shortly after the Finals ended, "There are NO SHORTCUTS. NONE." This will, inevitably, be blown out of proportion by the news sites with nothing better to do than to fluff Lebron's ego, but Gilbert gets it. Lebron just wanted a shortcut to the title, and he didn't get it. If he wants to be a champion, he has to play like one and earn it. Nobody, not even David Stern, is going to just hand him the trophy without earning it. He thought that by teaming up with Wade and Bosh, he would have it easy. Life on the beach. Playing with good friends. Winning championships. Nope. At least, not yet.

I'm not deluded enough into thinking that Lebron James won't ever win an NBA title. I pretty much expect them to next year, but I may be wrong - I hope I am, anyway. It's a bit of a shame, really, that the absolute best talent in the NBA has to be housed in a body with a brain like Lebron possesses. The guy in a riddle wrapped inside of a mystery wrapped inside a 26-year old manchild. He wants to have his cake, eat it, too, and not have to worry about baking it or cleaning up the mess in the kitchen (that analogy makes sense in my head). Maybe he'll grow up - he's still pretty young, after all - and grow into a real winner and he will actually win in the end.

That will actually be fine with me, because he didn't win this year.

He didn't leave Cleveland to win next year; he could have done that in Cleveland. He left to win now, and he failed. I've been vindicated, and I got to enjoy some amazing basketball in the process. It was an insanely exciting season to be a viewer of, and I am glad that the bad guys lost and the good guys won. It will only last a few months, sure, but the record books will always read, "2011 NBA Champions - Dallas Mavericks," and Lebron James still has as many championship rings as I do.

I'm going to type that one more time, because it just feels good: Lebron James still has as many championship rings as I do.

X-Men: First Class

****1/2*
Four and a Half Stars Out of Five

I really don't think I've ever seen a more shittily-produced promotion for a movie. When the first stills from X-Men: First Class were revealed, it looked like an absolute pile of shit. Then, there were the first few promotional posters released, and they seriously resembled something a 7th-grade comic book nerd feverishly put together with some amateurish understanding of Photoshop. I was so turned off by these images that I had decided that this would be an absolute abomination of a film. I just could not imagine a production which could possibly be watchable when this was the type of promotional materials being shown. It seemed like Marvel had tricked 20th Century Fox into making the worst thing possible in hopes of somehow getting the rights to the X-Franchise back in their hands. It turns out that I was incredibly wrong. The flick is fucking awesome, and is one of the best comic book adaptations yet.

What sets First Class apart from most other superhero (and basically any big-budget) movies is that it has a heart: it actually goes somewhere. I love movies that feature big fucking robots fucking each other up as much as the next guy, but those movies contain plots that serve only to get to each subsequent set piece as opposed to telling an interesting story. First Class actually gives a shit about its characters, evidenced by the first half of the movie without a real slam-bang action set piece. Sure, there are moments of action in that first hour, but nothing too crazy. The movie is content, thankfully, on exploring the characters' motives and what makes them tick. I am glad that director Matthew Vaughn developed these characters, because they are characters I grew up with and loved in my comic books; I wanted to see them fuck shit up, of course, but I wanted it to mean something, as opposed to just watching shit get fucked up for the sake of it. I got that, and more. The characters actually change over the course of the film; allegiances switch, and it makes sense. It was simply astonishing to see many of my favorite characters done right in movie-form, and I am infinitely happy that it worked out as well as it did.


I was initially put off by the characters appearing in the flick, because aside from Professor X, Magneto, Mystique, Emma Frost, and Beast, nobody was too well-known. Hell, even Mystique and Emma Frost probably aren't known too well by anybody who didn't spend their weekly allowances at comic shops growing up. I understand that, due to the continuity set up by the previous trilogy - and to an extent, the what-the-fuck-were-they-thinking-when-they-put-those-characters-in-there from X-Men Origins: Wolverine - Vaughn's hands were tied. The movie takes place in the early-60's, so they couldn't very well throw Cyclops as a teenager in there, as he would be roughly 50-something in the "modern-day" trilogy. They also couldn't throw Wolverine in there for continuity reasons, and his semi-franchise that has, unfortunately, stalled. Therefore, I get that lesser-knowns like Banshee (Caleb Landry Jones basically steals the show, but more on that later) and Havok - even if he is Cyclop's younger brother in the comics, and is clearly older here. It also helps keep the focus squarely on Charles 'Professor X' Xavier and Erik 'Magneto' Lehnsherr, which is really where the focus needs to be, considering the sheer awesomeness of them.

Magneto, as we all know from seeing X-Men, was imprisoned in a Nazi work camp during WWII. The flick opens with a young Erik being experimented upon by a "Nazi" "doctor," who turns out to be mutant Sebastian Shaw. The opening scenes set the stage for the entire movie, as Erik wants revenge on the man who tortured him during the war, and it also lets us see how his worldview is irrevocably altered. Here is a Jew who has seen what humanity is capable of doing to those deemed outcasts, and he will do everything in his power to ensure that does not happen to his people (in this case, mutants) do not suffer the same fate. Erik grows up into an adult who is consumed by his need for vengeance, and it pushes him to do things without properly thinking them through. His character undergoes an interesting transition throughout the film as he initially is a lone-wolf who becomes a supposed savior (in his own mind) of mutantkind.


Charles is the exact opposite. He grew up incredibly privileged, and discovers his own mutation early on. In one of the movie's few hiccups, we are introduced to Mystique who is apparently a 7 year-old orphan who raids Charles' gigantic mansion for food. The scene is a rare miss, but at least it introduces Charles to another mutant and forms an interesting relationship between him and Mystique. He grows up studying mutations, and generally uses that information to pick up women in England (his use of the word 'groovy' is hysterical and clearly reminds us we're in the 60's). Due to his unique mutation, Charles finds it easy to blend in to society, and it ultimately proves that he cannot see the entire picture of mutant-human relations clearly as he wants to, because his physical appearance is not different.


Charles and Erik's paths eventually cross as they are both in pursuit of the same man: Sebastian Shaw. Erik wants revenge while Charles is helping the CIA find other mutants. They form a hesitant alliance and begin assembling their own mutant "army" to compete with Shaw's, which includes Emma Frost (a telepath who can also change her into diamond form), Azazel (think a Russian, red Nightcrawler), and Riptide (he makes big ole' water tornadoes that mess things up nicely). Their new crew consists of Banshee (crazy-strong screaming, which is used brilliantly throughout the flick), Beast (gorilla-feet, insane intelligence, not blue... yet), Darwin (adapts for survival... really cool mutation), Angel (a stripper with dragonfly wings), and Havok (creates plasma blasts). The entire montage of finding the mutants is well-done, and also includes one of the best cameo appearances ever in a movie, although I will not spoil that. 

For fear of spoiling anything else, I'll just say this: Sebastian Shaw wants to start nuclear war to wipe out humankind to give rise to mutants. It involves America, Russia, and the Cuban missile crisis. It's cool stuff, to be sure, but the characters are clearly more important than the plot itself, which is fine by me, considering the characterization is so great. A lot of the great characterization falls onto the casting, which is fucking amazing.


The past few X-flicks have had some great casting - like Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, for one - but still missed out on quite a few big ones. Alan Cumming as Nightcrawler always pissed me off, because Nightcrawler was one of my favorite characters, and Cumming is a butt-munch who is not the least bit cool. Halle Berry as Storm always sucked, too, mostly because Storm was an African bad-ass, not some sexy American gal. The only "miss" as far as casting in First Class goes to January Jones as Emma Frost, but even that is forgivable due to the necessity to have a buxom-breasted blonde beauty portray her. I like Emma Frost in the comics because she is multi-faceted and hard to pin down for the most part; in the movie, she exists solely to show off her cleavage (again, forgivable), and to say a few silly things.

But when it comes to the Big Two of Magneto and Professor X, well, golly, if they didn't hit a home run with the casting. Michael Fassbender as Magneto was simply inspired casting. This guy has got it all to be big in Hollywood - this cat oozes charisma. His role in Inglourious Basterds is one of my favorite performances in the last ten years, and he also killed it in 300. Here, though, he's finally given a chance to star and portray a deep character with a tragic background. Without a great actor anchoring the film as Magneto, the flick simply could have fallen apart, but Fassbender is up to the task, and every moment he is on screen, he dominates the proceedings. His confidence and abilities allow him to be a super-powered James Bond without the allegiance to Her Majesty's Secret Service, and that's saying something as I love me some Bond.

James McAvoy as Professor X is also a knock-out. McAvoy has the ability to be a star, too, and he plays Charles with a quiet confidence and a man thrust into the role of mutant savior even though he's not quite ready for it yet. My biggest gripe by far is that both Magneto and Professor X didn't spend enough time together to truly get to know one another better. In the earlier X-films, it is implied that they spent years together building the X-Men, whereas here, they sadly do not. It goes against the introduction to X-Men: The Last Stand, in which they recruit Jean Gray to their cause. Again, I forgive the misstep due to the fact that continuity in these films have gotten to be quite ridiculous and befuddling, but hopefully the sequel clears this up a bit.

And then there's Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw. I would be remiss if I didn't note Bacon's brilliant acting throughout his career, transitioning from 80's leading man to excellent character actor. Everybody I've ever met knows Kevin Bacon and loves the guy, and it's a shame he's never had the luck of some of his contemporaries. Hopefully, the spotlight can shine on him just a little bit more in his twilight years (okay, he's not that old, but still... in Hollywood, 45 is like 98). I've always championed Bacon, due to his criminally underrated performances in movies like Footloose (I am absolutely not kidding, that movie is fucking aces), and Stir of Echoes (how The Sixth Sense was a bigger hit than that is still beyond me), and I am glad to finally see him get to chew the scenery as a wicked man that doesn't involve seeing his penis again.

So, in summation, I don't have much bad to say about the movie. The little nits I felt necessary to pick weren't nearly enough to ruin my enjoyment of the movie one damn bit, and a lot of it is understandable given the constraints of previous entries. Prequels are a tricky business, as they are required to fit into previously created continuity while also showing us something we haven't seen before. Luckily, Vaughn and co. were up to the task, and helped craft one of the finest comic book adaptations yet. While it doesn't quite reach the level of The Dark Knight or the original Superman, it is better than all the rest, and is easily the best X-Men movie to date. I am already excited about the prospect of a sequel, and I really hope the film succeeds financially so we can see where Vaughn will take us in the future (past). The summer has started excellently, and I can only hope that the rest of the films released are half as good as First Class. This movie is, pun gleefully intended, at the top of the class. Enjoy.