This Week at the Movies

The comic book origin film has become one of Hollywood’s most popular and least inspiring subgenres. You know the drill: unassuming hero discovers powers, meets villain and must decide whether to fight for the common good. The entire picture is typically a setup for the inevitable sequels that will follow.

More often than not, these films feature plot devices, back stories and action sequences that are so similar that any random scene from any comic book picture could be cut and spliced into another and it would likely fit.

Consider the prospect of revisiting any of these recent examples – “Thor,” “The Green Hornet,” “Ghost Rider,” “Kick Ass” and “Jonah Hex.” Or, better yet, don’t.

Occasionally, a comic book origin film rises above the genre (see Christopher Nolan’s Batman reboots). Such is the case for “X-Men: First Class,” a familiar, but entertaining, summer blockbuster that goes slightly above and beyond the requirements of this type of picture.

For starters, director Matthew Vaughn has enlisted a who’s who of young talent, including James McAvoy as Professor X, 2010 Academy Award nominee Jennifer Lawrence as a young Mystique, Rose Byrne, January Jones and a scene-stealing Michael Fassbender as Magneto. Kevin Bacon pops up in a juicy role as the film’s villain.

The picture’s multiple writers have fun tinkering with history in a script that involves the early days of the X-Men, from World War II through the Cuban Missile Crisis. Vaughn has an eye for period detail, most of which is handled subtly, and the movie makes good use of archival footage.

The series had lost steam in its third entry from 2006, while 2009’s “Wolverine” fell flat. That latter film’s titular character makes a cameo appearance in “First Class” that drew a big laugh.

This latest “X-Men” film may not reach the heights of 2008’s “The Dark Knight,” which has become the gold standard of the genre, but it is a vast improvement over this summer season’s so-far middling selections.

Stop by Douglaston Patch every Monday morning for This Week at the Movies. Next week’s reviews will include J.J. Abrams’ homage to Steven Spielberg, “Super 8,” and Jean Luc Godard’s divisive “Film Socialisme.”