X-Men: First Class

Two Kevin Bacon films in one week -- bonus. This X-Men prequel goes back to the 1940's in order to tell the story of how mutants were first "discovered". Bacon plays the evil Nazi scientist who maintains a goal of helping evolution along by eliminating humans. His first discovery is a boy who eventually grows up to be the Magneto we know and love, and of course psychologically devastates the boy to provide a lifetime of hero/nemesis interactions for Marvel Comics. We are also introduced to Professor Xavier in his pre-professor days when he needed to put a thoughtful finger-to-the-temple in order to utilize his mutant power of telepathy (reminded me of Austin Powers every time). This film does a good job of providing the X-Men backstory, tying it in to crisis in actual history (which is always fun), and showing off some cool action/effects with the mutant powers. So a good solid film, but not great or groundbreaking in anyway. Fortunately, I don't think the film was trying to be groundbreaking. Just fun.

3 stars (out of 5)