Best of the Decade, No. 20


Over the next 25 weeks I'll be rolling out my favorite films of the last decade. This is, as all lists of this kind, personal selections. Agree, disagree, make a comment and share your thoughts!

No. 20 X-Men: First Class (2011)
Starring: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, January Jones, Kevin Bacon, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, and Rose Byrne
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Academy Award Nominations: 0
Academy Award Wins: 0
About: Today I continue my countdown with the second of three superhero films on the list, and maybe one folks don't expect. I think the new cast of "X-Men" probably have a different thought from fans after a couple of the more recent films, but this was the one that started it all. And it's incredible. Bacon plays a good bad guy, but this is really all about Charles Xavier (McAvoy) and Erik Lensherr (Fassbender), and their performances here are great. This serves well as a moody origin story, set in the 1960s around the Cuban Missile Crisis. It also serves as an introduction to these characters and an origin story for the X-Men, and it does that well. But it's the larger ideological discussions that took it to another level for me. I am moved by the chess match—both literal and figurative—between Charles and Erik, and how it frames the friendship that carries through their whole lives. In addition, I liked the way this film was shot and put together. Vaughn delivers a very engaging and entertaining film, and one that I think is not only under-rated for the decade, but for the genre. This gets lost in the wave of MCU and D.C. films in the decade, but it's one of my favorite superhero films, and one of the most engaging. So for me, it was an easy choice to drop this on the list.
Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of action and violence, some sexual content including brief partial nudity and language.

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