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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 319326" data-attributes="member: 23">X-Men: First Class (2011) <img src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2F4.bp.blogspot.com%2F-DcUVz_8yFo0%2FTef2Kqs80wI%2FAAAAAAAAAK4%2FZ3Ov28lomBQ%2Fs1600%2Fx-men-first-class-uk-poster.jpg&f=1&nofb=1" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="width: 421px" /> Well, this was a curate's egg when I watched in 2011 and it's a curate's egg for me in 2022. There are some things about the film that I love: The Sixties setting with the Cold War backdrop that, sadly, feels eerily familiar and relevant given current world events; The gorgeous locations; Henry Jackman's rousing score. I'd forgotten that the film opened in the concentration camp as in the original and that's a choice I thoroughly applaud. But there's also much that I greatly dislike. My intial disappointment came from seeing it wasn't actually the original team of X-Men (Cyclops; Iceman; Angel; Beast, Marvel Girl), but even getting past this much of my problem has to do with anachronisms, curious continuity and off-putting choices for some characterisations. This is definitely one film where familiarity with the source material was most unhelpful, because it took a hell of a lot of of liberties. The Hellfire Club kind of fitted into the Sixties setting given there's always been that kind of vibe to them even though they debuted much later than that, but I felt the casting was off. Tall, slim Kevin Bacon doesn't feel quite right as Sebastian Shaw to me. And while January Jones looks OK-ish as Emma Frost she lacked any sense of authority and this Emma - with her constantly bored look and vocal fry - felt too California laid-back and didn't feel classy enough. Emma may dress to show off her body, but it's her education, strong mind and air of superiority that makes her powerful and intimidating. These were all lacking. As far as new X-Men used, many felt like they were out of the Marvel bargain bin: Darwin; Angel Jones; Riptide. I hadn't heard of any of them and nothing I saw made me want to know any more about them. Of the new younger characters introduced to this iteration of the team (bearing in mind we've met Beast twice before) Banshee and Havok are the two I was most excited about seeing, and they kind of feel like appropriate choices given they interacted with the original team before All New, All Different. But they're also the most disappointing. There's the tricky matter of Havok - Cyclops's younger brother - being part of the team in the Sixties. Why have him at all if Cyclops isn't present. Banshee felt way too young compared with any version of the character we've seen. And his accent leads me on to another problem. Where was Banshee's trademark Irish brogue. He sounded American. So too did Moira, and that felt so very wrong. Meanwhile, Scottish James McAvoy used contemporary RP for Charles as opposed to Patrick Stewart's mid-Atlantic accent. This had the effect of making Charles's Americanisms ("gotten", "go see", etc.) sound a little jarring  despite the character being firmly established as an American. He's still a nice choice for the role, though. Michael Fassbender was great for most of the film. His performance matched up with Ian McKellen's version and he's certainly very easy on the eye. But from his final confrontation with Shaw onwards I picked up a really curious accent which sounded like the kind of terrible pseudo American accent I'd hear in the playground at school, which mostly consisted of over-rhoticity ("You killed my motherrrrrrrrr"). It reminded me of the accent Ben Kingsley used as Trevor Slattery playing the Mandarin, but that accent made sense since Slattery - as it turned out - was meant to be a terrible actor presumably doing a terrible accent. I hadn't noticed Fassbender's accent at all until then and it continued to the very final scene. This made me wonder if the final scenes had been shot earlier, before he had  dialect coach. Or perhaps I just missed it. A quick run in a search engine revealed that the accent had been quite the talking point as there are many articles discussing it, including <a href="https://www.ign.com/articles/2011/06/06/fassbenders-x-men-accent-explained" target="_blank">Fassbender's own take on it</a>. I really hope it doesn't continue into future films as it's horrible. His performance, on the other hand, lived up to the film's name. This is the most recent of X-Films I've previously watched. Everything after this will be new to me.</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?