Review: X-Men: First Class

I was excited to see that this was the first summer hit to be released on Blu-ray. To me this was the best comic book film out of all four this summer and the second to be released over the summer in theatres.

My primary rant about the movie is primarily about the issues I ran into trying to watch the movie on my Blu-Ray player. I have heard and read that the Samsung Blu-ray players have problems with some discs. I was afraid after messing with the player and trying to update it Friday night that I would have to return the Blu-ray copy and get it on DVD. Needless to say I did give up. The issue was that it took longer than normal for the Blu-ray disc to load and when it did I would get to the title menu without any options to play the movie or go to the special features. After being fed up late Friday night into early Saturday morning ( even after having contacted Samsung's online chat help) I went to bed. The player wouldn't load an update that it needed and for some reason I wasn't having luck burning a CD with the update correctly. So I was ready to take the movie back to the store. I even read on Amazon.com that other people who owns a Samsung Blu-ray player was having difficulties.

The following day I went to show my wife the problem of what I happening with the disc. The disc still loaded slowly to the menu and surprisingly the menu options showed up and I could watch the movie. I haven't had the problem since aside from being the longest disc to load.

I really don't have a lot of negative things to say about X-Men: First Class as a movie. I like the flow of the film and the story line. I did notice some continuity gaps in the movie from the previous X-men films. Most of the movie's fans will know what I am talking about that it doesn't fit correctly with established cannon from the other films. SPOILER ALERT!!! (Example, Professor X was bald and walking when he saved the mutant children from 3-mile Island at the end of Wolverine and Prof X has full hair and is in a wheel chair and has a full head of hair at the end of First Class and Emma Frost was among the rescued and was much younger in Wolverine than she was in First Class and was not a part of the school since it just started in First Class).

Although, I read that this is a reboot of the films and doesn't need to fit into what is supposed to come after. Which is alright if that is what the film makers want to do. I mean rebooting is the trend now. However, on the opposite side of the coin is that there is going to be a sequel to the Wolverine prequel that kind of mucks up that explanation. So hopefully there will be First Class 2 to explain and cover up some of the gaps.

The only real disappointment I have is the fact that the other three comic book films didn't live up to the expectations I had. I did see Thor before X-Men: First Class and I was blown away by it and I think I held that expectation against Green Latern and Captain America. Although, I will review Thor next after I watch it for what I will consider the first time. I saw Thor in 3D and I think that took away from the movie.