Starring James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Kevin Bacon, Rose Byrne, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicolas Hoult
Directed by Mathew Vaughan

Attempting to tie-up a prequel to the original is always a tricky task and one with vastly varied results, but X- Men: First Class does pull it off. While it technically stands alone, not least due to its entirely new cast, it is clear that the film feels a responsibility to be faithful to the franchise we know. It does this mainly by revelling in various nods and winks and although at times a bit cheeky, it just about gets the balance right.

So eleven years after the original X – Men, we now get the back story of the franchise’s two key protagonists; Charles Xavier aka ‘Professor X’ and Erik Lehnsherr aka ‘Magneto’.

Events begin in a strikingly similar fashion to those of the original film; once again we are shown a flashback to 1944 as a child Erik crumbles a gate while Nazi soldiers separate him from his mother. The difference is that this time we also see the nefarious individual who plans to exploit his gift. Meanwhile a young Charles prowls his large family home after he senses an intruder. Here, we are shown how he begins a long, close relationship with a certain other well known character of the franchise.

Fast forward some 20 odd years later and it’s the early sixties. Charles is a suave, confident ladies man teaching advanced genetics at Oxford and Erik is a man possessed and on the hunt for his childhood tormentor.

The film’s main objective is to show how various mutants found each other and in particular, how two of them formed a strong bond that would shape the way for the future mutant race, albeit one with different ideals.

The more specific story concentrates on a plot by malevolent mutants to take over the world, and one worthy of vintage Bond at its most camp and over the top at that.

Performances are generally good all round with yet another impressive turn from Nicholas Hoult. But the heart of the film was always going to be the solid relationship between Charles and Erik and both James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender have superb chemistry in this regard, laying a crucial backbone to a film that could get too busy and even tiresome without it.

The X – Men films have been some of the more impressive in the superhero cannon and this one doesn’t let the standards down.