X-Men: First Class

X-Men: First Class has great special effects and plenty of pretty faces. I am both fairly satisfied and painfully disappointed by this prequel/reboot. It is somewhat effective as an origin story of the X-Men, but the film does a piss poor job at developing all of the characters, only two mutants shine in this film. The best story and character development is given to Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto, played expertly by Michael Fassbender. He is likable and has clear motivation for his actions. He is perfectly cast; Fassbender is THE number one best thing about this film. The second best thing about the film is James McAvoy as Charles Xavier/Professor X. However, his story is not as well written. He is an uneven and less impressive character. Luckily, the movie does an acceptable job of showing the relationship between Magneto and Professor X. If the movie had just been about the two of them it could have been fantastic. Unfortunately, the rest of the mutants got a lot of screen time and were less engaging (i.e., January Jones as Emma Frost). They make it clear that the film makers tried to fit too much into X-Men: First Class. Overall, I cannot say that it is not a complete let down; but its shining moments are too few and far between.