The film then jumps to 1962. Erik (Michael Fassbender), who has magnetic control over metal, survived the Holocaust and hunts down the Nazi killers of his mom. He meets Charles (James MacAvoy) and they become good friends who work together against Shaw and the threat to start World War III using the infamous Cuban Missile Crisis as background. In the end, there’s a rift between them starting the war between peace-loving Charles’ X-Men and Magneto’s more violent Brotherhood.
The prequel is masterfully directed by Matthew Vaughn, who earlier gave us the energetic “Kick Ass”. He stays faithful to the source Marvel comic material but also introduces a new hateful villain (Shaw) and some new mutants. He not only succeeds in coming up with dazzling CGI special effects and great action sequences but also in providing good character development that helps us get to know the mutants better.
Shaw is assisted by telepath-diamond girl Emma Frost (January Jones), teleporter Azazel (Jason Flemyng) and weather controller Riptide (Alex Gonzalez.) Their first encounter with Erik, Charles and the Coast Guards prompts Charles to organize their own team of mutants with the help of CIA agent Moira (Rose Byrne). Along with Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), they recruit CIA scientist Hank (Nichols Hoult) who becomes Beast, Angel (Zoe Kravitz) who has wings, Alex (Lucas Till) who becomes Havoc, Armando Munoz (Edi Gathegi), who oesn’t last long, and Sean Cassidy (Caleb Jones) who becomes Banshee with his powerful voice. Someone who becomes known as Wolverine also pops up for a cameo appearance. Charles trains the mutants on how to develop their unique abilities. The mixture of actual history (the late JFK is shown in several vintage news footage) with comic book fantasy is quite well handled.
The movie has a feel that reminds you of Sean Connery’s James Bond flicks. Fassbender as Erik nearly walks away with the film as he has such a dominant charismatic screen presence that easily eclipses the dull McAvoy who’ll make you look for the more dynamic Patrick Stewart. He looks like he’d be more perfect as Bond than Daniel Craig. He first made waves in “Jane Eyre”, “Centurion” and “Fish Tank” and has now become so hot he’s doing one movie after another, including “A Dangerous Method” (where he plays Carl Jung), “Haywire”, “Shame”, “Prometheus” and the remake of “Django”. Bacon is also excellent as the villain Shaw who oozes evil even when he’s being nice and polite. But January Jones of “Mad Men” gives a lackluster performance as the Ice Queen. Personally, we think this is the best film in the X-Men series since it was started in 2000 by Director Bryan Singer.