X-Men: First Class

Last week I watched X-Men: First Class.  This movie tells the story of how Magneto and Professor X came to be friends and then enemies.  It is set during the Cold War and in particular the Cuban Missile crisis.

I really enjoyed this movie.  There was a good balance of action, special effects, and character development.  I love getting the back stories of characters we know from other places.  The acting was good, the respect for the other movies was preserved, the alternate history was fun.  For an action movie, it told a good story.  Towards the end of the movie, some of the plot wrap ups felt forced, but maybe that was because I didn't want the movie to end.  I definitely think that they should make another prequel like this one.

I would recommend this move to anyone who likes the X-Men franchise or who likes action movies with a good plot.  I think this movie works best as a prequel.  Watch the other X-Men movies (maybe not Wolverine) to get a feel for the story and get familiar with the characters and then watch this one to see where they came from.  This film is PG-13 for all the usual action movie reasons, violence, sexuality, profanity.  But there are also a couple of scenes that are really hard to watch, including a coin slowly going through someone's head and someone else getting killed in an intense scene(it's a plot spoiler).  The most disturbing is Magneto pulling someone's metal filling out of their head; I couldn't watch.  So it may not be appropriate for people sensitive to those images.

IMDB: Jennifer Lawrence plays Raven/Mystique and I think she is going to be one of my favorite actors.  She was great in Winter's Bone, and she is going to be in Hunger Games, which I'm really looking forward to.