It's up, finally! The long awaited reveal of
X-Men: First Class has been unleashed tonight, as promised, in the form of a deliberately somber and methodically paced teaser trailer with a threatening score that simply demands attention. We like it very much. What's clear from the trailer is that director
Matthew Vaughn simply isn't playing in the same wheelhouse as those guys behind this year's other less interesting superhero flicks Green Lantern, Thor & Captain America. This one has more on it's mind, a more sophisticated director working with a deeper superhero mythology... one that places our much loved X-characters in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Yes folks, this is a comic book trailer that's mostly narrated by JFK! Other positives: I like the X-Men jump suits a lot more than I thought I would,
the CGI-enhanced Beast looks great
and I can't wait to see more of Emma Frost (
January Jones) and Sebastian Shaw (
Kevin Bacon).
The only negative thing I'll say is that I'm not entirely sold on
James McAvoy as Xavier, and
Michael Fassbender, who I had actually thought was an inspired choice for Magneto, seems to be grimacing and trying way to hard to be menacing... and his accent isn't at all what I expected. He looks surprisingly kind of uncomfortable in the part, at least the characters moments they have chosen for the trailer point that way anyway.
Also... cutting scenes from the original X-Men trilogy to introduce us to this world? Dangerous, because that suggests prequel and not reboot, so now Fox you are treading a very fine line because we won't put up with anything that doesn't make sense when the inevitable continuity cock-ups occur. You've made it clear via the trailer that these are the same characters we've seen in the previous films, now you have to live up to that fact! And finally, most disturbing moment of the trailer? Check out the mutant with wings doing some kind of seduction on a very cosy Magneto & Xavier. That's one weird threesome!
X-Men: First Class opens June 3rd.