X-Men First Class Directed by: Matthew Vaughan Starring: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Rose Byrne Rating: NR Release Date: June 3, 2011
TRAILER SCORE: 5/10
MY THOUGHTS: I say this as a huge X-Men but for the first time since I saw X-Men origins: Wolverine, I'm scared. It started out like a dream project. Finally, I was getting more X-Men and Bryan Singer was returning to the franchise! Sadly, that was not to be. He's still producing, so I guess that's something, and Matthew Vaughan has proved himself capable with Kick-Ass. Still, this trailer doesn't inspire much faith. I mean, sure, it's a teaser but it waste almost half of its running time doing the whole "inter titles and bits and pieces from previous movies" thing. We get it, you're talking about X-Men so quit talking and show me something good! What follows are choppy shots of various characters that are evidently supposed to be impressive. There are some quality special effects here, especially with Jennifer Lawrence's transformation into Mystique, but most of it is just tired. Then again, what isn't tired seems contrived. Given that its release is scheduled for June, I get that it's a blockbuster, but various displays of "oooh, look what we can do" don't make for a good film. I'm holding out for a halfway decent trailer because I'm not ready to give up on this one yet. Some of the visuals are engaging but there's not enough here to make it worth the wait. Hopefully they won't keep us in the dark much longer. After all, X-Men: First Class has always had the potential for greatness with its roots in allegory and in this case, it looks like we might be seeing a bit of the Cuban Missile Crisis? I can't say for sure, but it has definite potential so let's hope we see more of it soon.