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Earlier this year, when going through my summer movie preview, I postulated the possibility that June would be the best month of the summer movie season. With one excellent release down and another poised to open tomorrow, it looks like that might be the case.

X-Men: First Class
Starring: Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, Kevin Bacon, Jennifer Lawrence, Rose Byrne, January Jones, and Nicholas Hoult
Synopsis: In the middle of last week, when I was looking at reviews for "X-Men," I found one with this headline — "'X-Men' first class indeed." I thought it was not only a funny play on words, but gave me hope that the film would start the turnaround we need among summer blockbusters. To this point we've had a passable "Thor," which was better than expected but still not something that got me too excited, an awful action film in "Priest," a mediocre "Pirates" sequel and a couple hard-R comedies. Not an auspicious beginning. But with the dawning of a new month, apparently our cinematic fortunes are changing. "X-Men: First Class" chronicles the budding friendship of Charles Xavier (McAvoy) and Erik Lehnsherr (Fassbender) during the turbulent Cuban Missile Crisis. The men — both mutants imbued with superhuman abilities — both want to stop Sebastian Shaw (Bacon) — one-time Nazi scientist and current nefarious megalomaniac — from plunging the world into nuclear war. But both have very different reasons for doing so. The best part of the "X-Men" series, to me, has been the ideological debate surrounding Charles and Erik. This film captures that beautifully, adding some context to the debate and showing the foundation of the friendship, and the life-long divergent missions the pair engage in. The film does an excellent job of telling a compelling original story while creating a believable and engaging prequel to the original "X-Men" series. It's a credit to director Matthew Vaughn ("Kick-Ass," "Layer Cake") that the film is a solid blend of action, comedy and drama with plenty of character development built in. Fassbender and McAvoy are great in the lead roles, with Bacon doing well as the villainous Shaw. The supporting cast — including recent Academy Award nominee Lawrence, Byrne, Jones, and Hoult — are strong as well. To this point, "X-Men: First Class" is the class of the summer blockbusters.
Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of action and violence, some sexual content including brief partial nudity, and language.
Rating: Four stars out of four.


Upcoming Releases:
Friday, June 10 — "Super 8," "Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer"
Friday, June 17 — "The Green Lantern," "Mr. Popper's Penguins"
Friday, June 24 — "Cars 2," "Bad Teacher," "A Better Life"
Wednesday, June 29 — "Transformers: Dark of the Moon"
Friday, July 1 — "Larry Crowne," "Monte Carlo"
Friday, July 8 — "Zookeeper," "Horrible Bosses"
Friday, July 15 — "Harry Potter And the Deathly Hallows, Part 2," "Winnie The Pooh"

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