Now I know and acknowledge that I have absolutely no real knowledge of film or cinema. And this post isn't gonna be a critique of the film so much as it's going to be my impression of the film and what it was like to watch it as a comics fan. I'm going to keep it spoiler free, just cause I don't want to ruin anyones day and get put on someone's death list.
As a whole, I have to say I did enjoy the film. It had a really neat aesthetic to it that I really dug. It captured and evoked a solid understanding that this is the 1960's. The inter splicing of historical events into the plot only further facilitated this and I definitely thought it worked. It had that same kind of feeling that AMC's Mad Men has that makes me dig on that too. Along with all that I have to say I was mostly impressed with the cast of actors, highlights being Michael Fassbender and Kevin Bacon. I did have minor problems with James McAvoy as Charles Xavier. Not with his acting per say, because I did believe him to give a solid portrayal of that youthful hopeful enthusiasm that embodies Professor X. But more with just his mannerism and looks. I honestly couldn't get over the bald thing. He lost all his hair before he was out of high school! Shave that sucker! And when he wasn't speaking, when he was communicating telepathically or deep in thought, he had this kind of puffy pouting looking face that kind of looked like he was constipated. I know its childish and minor! But its all I could think about every time he made that face! Enough of the basic shite, just move unto the comic adaption part.
Now for as much as I enjoyed the film, how did it do as an adaptation? Fucking awful! For every excellent and original idea I could get behind there were two more wholly terrible representations of characters I love. I suppose the first and most foremost example of this is the film's Moria MacTaggert. This is pretty much a brand new character created the film that they just slapped the name Moria MacTaggert on. It bares literally zero resemblance to the comics version of Moria MacTaggert other than the fact that in both versions she is a woman. That's about it. Not a scientist, not Scottish, didn't meet Xavier at graduate school. Nothing! It made my brain hurt. Now I understood her role as a character, and I enjoyed her for the most part but why stick that name on her, and label her as Moria when she has nothing to do with her! When I hear Moria I have certain expectations of who she is, from years of reading and all those expectations are disappointed. Its not a nice little head nod to the fans, its more of a slap in the face. And as a retailer, when people come in asking about X-Men stuff and that's their only perception of Moria, it makes it 100 times harder to explain that no she isn't anything like that and this is what she's really like it. It's just weird to me!
The same is true of using the name The Hellfire Club when it barely had anything to do with the real club other than Shaw was still in charge. It was a minor aspect of the film so its not a huge deal, but it is still annoying. This is just more nitpicking but it Charles Xavier was born in New York. And from my understanding he doesn't have an accent, its those minor things that make you stop and go, "Huh, wait a second"! Same is true of the idea that Hank McCoy created Cerebro and built the Blackbird. I don't think so buddy, Dr. Hank McCoy is a world leader on biochemistry and genetics not building crazy fake machines. It also boggles my mind to have Alex Summers in the film with absolutely no mention to Scott Summers. This really is a team composed completely at random. It's easy to understand that in the larger scheme of things that their target audience isn't really me. It's not the die hard fans, cause they know they will get me anyways. They need to attract the people who are familiar with the book and the characters but don't regularly go out of their way to check out comic stuff. I don't know, I'm not a marketing genius, but at least to me it seems like they went for characters that were different than those that were used in the first couple films, but were still somewhat recognizable, and had powers that were easy to understand.
It's an overall solid film and I think it's easily worth your money, but in this summer filled with comic movies it is most likely looking like the weakest of all the films.
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