5 Things - X-Men: First Class

While my cinematic journeys are primarily focused on the past, I still catch some newer releases. You won't get a full review on these, but you will get five thoughts and a bottom line.

1. How awesome is Kevin Bacon as a villain? Could he be having more fun?

2. And how awful is January Jones? She's like a black hole of acting ineptitude, sucking the life out of every scene she's in. I don't watch Mad Men, but how does she have an acting gig? 

3. Minor spoiler, but, in choosing a team member to off, they choose the black guy. How cliche.

4. We had a Ray Wise and a Michael Ironside sighting! Wise literally is in one scene and has two lines. And Ironside (or "M. Ironside" as the credits list him) must have a deal with Hollywood to play every anonymous military commander on film.

5. The effects work is hit or miss and the creature makeup is almost always awful. There's a scene where young Magneto makes stuff fly around the room that looks like stop motion animation projected behind the actor. And every time I saw Beast or Mystique, they look not like mutant creatures, but like the victims of an unfortunate "buy one, get twenty" deal on blue body paint.

Bottom Line: There are some weak dialogue and effects, but the focus on character, acting and directing elevate almost every scene.  Michael Fassbender is a real star in the making.  Matthew Vaughn is the best director nobody pays attention to.  X-Men: First Class is the class of the young summer.

**** out of *****