X-Men: First Class (2011)

So....was this a prequel or a reboot? I'm going to go with requel. We have 3 X-Men movies that are more less consistent, we have the X-Men Origins movie which messes up some stuff but is trying to be part of the timeline and now this. Let's overlook for the moment the fact that some characters are out of place with the comic books, let's just think about the movie universe. Xavier is one of the main problems - we never know in the movies how he lost the ability to walk and this movie gives that to us which is all fine and good, except he loses the ability to walk as a young man, but in the 3rd movie, Xavier, portrayed by Patrick Stewart is accompanied by Magneto to the house of young Jean Grey, and he is walking. Speaking of Magneto, he has pretty much decided to wage war on humanity at the end of this film which is 1962 and roughly 20 years later he's back working with Xavier finding mutants? I will buy that he could have changed his mind and then changed it back, since that happens in the comic every time a new writer comes on board. Ororo Munroe is the next problem - we see her briefly the first time that Xavier uses Cerebro. If she's 10 in 1962, that makes her close to 60 in the first movie, and while it's not unheard of for mutants to age more slowly, that is not one of her abilities. For example, this is not a problem with Mystique who we know to be aging at half the normal rate, plus she can make herself look younger if she wanted to. I'm going to be generous and give Beast the slow aging power to, because he is almost the  same age as Xavier.
The other main concern of mine and I imagine a lot of fanboys around the world is when they take an already existing character and drastically change one or more things about him or her. Case in point, Alex Summers, a.k.a. Havoc a.k.a. Scott Summers younger brother in the comics. Is he supposed to be Cyclops father in this timeline? And moving the Hellfire Club from NYC to Las Vegas and making it basically a casino with a secret. Um, how does that fit in with Shaw thinking he and the members superior to humans? And while I certainly don't mind seeing Robe Byrne and January Jones stripped down to their undies, I really liked the aesthetic of the comic book Hellfire Club, it gave it a much more sexual aspect and also explained why the men treated the women the way they did. Speaking of January Jones, I've been watching Mad Men and her Emma Frost, whom I wish they had given the white blond hair to in the film, reminds me a lot of Betty. I haven't seen her in a lot of other things, so maybe Ms. Jones's characters are always like this, I guess the character she played in the Tourist was very similar as well. I'm also not so sure about Emma Frost being able to become diamond, does that happen in the comics? I don't ever recall it. Is Emma Frost one of the mutants that Wolverine frees in the Origins movie? Or, is that someone else who can turn to diamond?
I don't mind the movies creating mutants to fill roles, but it seems a shame to not use existing mutants from the comic books. I'm not sure if Riptide, Azazel, Angel or Darwin are in the comic books. They are all pretty cool. If they're not in the comics, I think it's cool that Singer added them to the film, especially as Azazel being on the same team as Mystique certainly explains Nightcrawler's origin. I also wonder why these characters, not counting Darwin, are not in the trilogy? If Storm can still be young and vibrant, why not Azazel? I'm betting it's just a case of retrofititis like Lucas did with the Star Wars Prequel - just throw in all this shit because it looks cool and never worry about why that stuff has disappeared by the later timeline stories.
Other than the above, which is certainly not enough to keep me from enjoying this film, I thought it went off quite splendidly. The story is wonderfully over the top and all the actors really get into their roles (I'm pretending that January Jones being really into a role looks like Emma Frost). I love the way the Governments of both the U.S. and Soviet Union are portrayed. Even better is the way the CIA is shown. Who would have thought that in the CIA, the only cool guy would be Oliver Platt? I also liked the way that the two opposing navies were portrayed in the stand-off. American and Soviet sailors doing their duty and not wanting to go to war, but willing to go to war if that's what their commander orders.
I enjoyed this movie enough, that unless something drastically changes, I'm going to watch the rest of the X-Men saga again in timeline order, so that means next will be X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and then X-Men 1 through 3.
I almost finished this without even talking about the goodness that are James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence. I think these are three of the finest young actor working today, maybe even going so far as to say that these are the three of the five top young actors working in movies right now. Two of the three were faced with the same daunting task that Ewen MacGregor was when he took on the role of Obi-wan Kenobi. Partick Stewart and Ian McKellen are two of the best actors alive and I would go so far as to say two of the best actors period. McAvoy and Fassbender had big shoes to step into, respectively. I think they handled it marvelously (no pun intended). Rebecca Romjin-Stamos is not a world class actress, so it was easy for Lawrence to overshadow her acting wise, but Romjin-Stamos is a world class beauty who lets it all hang out in her role as Mystique and Lawrence followed suit, or no suit as the case may be.

X-Men: First Class at IMDb