100 Greatest Superhero Stories Ever
By Steve Lam
Image Courtesy of 20th Century Fox
#35. X-Men: First Class
Medium
Live-Action Feature Film
Release Dates
May 25, 2011 (Ziegfeld Theatre)
June 3, 2011 (United States)
Credits
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Writers: Ashley Edward Miller, Zack Stentz, Jane Goldman, Matthew Vaugh, Sheldon Turner (Story), Bryan Singer (Story)
Cast: James McAvoy as Charles Xavier / Professor X, Laurence Belcher as 12-year-old Charles Xavier, Michael Fassbender as Erik Lehnsherr / Magneto, Bill Milner as 14-year-old Erik Lehnsherr, Rose Byrne as Moira MacTaggert, Jennifer Lawrence as Raven Darkhölme, Nicholas Hoult as Dr. Hank McCoy / Beast, Lucas Till as Alex Summers / Havok, Caleb Landry Jones as Sean Cassidy / Banshee, Kevin Bacon as Dr. Klaus Schmidt / Sebastian Shaw, Jason Flemyng as Azazel, Oliver Platt as Man in Black Suit, January Jones as Emma Frost, Edi Gathegi as Armando Muñez / Darwin, Zoë Kravitz as Angel Salvadore, Álex González as Janos Quested / Riptide, Matt Craven as CIA Director McCone, Rade Šerbedžija as Russian General, Glenn Morshower as Colonel Robert Hendry, Don Creech as CIA Agent Stryker
The Reason It’s Great
After X-Men: The Last Stand completely butchered “The Dark Phoenix Saga” storyline, the franchise returned to its greatness with X-Men: First Class. With a younger cast and a strong script, this film garnered rave reviews and a solid box office performance.
Erik Lehnsherr, a mutant with the power to generate and control magnetic fields, hunts for the Nazi scientist, Sebastian Shaw, who killed Erik’s mother. Charles Xavier, a mutant with telepathic abilities, seeks out others like him with the goal of helping them understand their abilities. When Shaw puts into motion a plan to start World War III, Erik and Charles join forces to stop him.
After Erik gets his revenge, his mentality towards humans changes. He believes that humans should go extinct, with the mutants inheriting the world. Charles wants to build on human/mutant relations and believes that both species can work together for a better future. Their philosophical divide becomes the source of their rivalry.
X-Men: First Class marked a new chapter in the X-Men franchise. With a story that was rich with themes and allegories, this film brought the X-Men back to their roots and matched the ambition of the original source material.