After watching a movie such as "X-Men: First Class," you really don't want to sit down at some steel gray desk and write about it. Turning aerial somersaults while telepathically transmitting brilliant sentences into your laptop sounds more the thing to do.
"X-Men: First Class" (released in Japan as "X-Men: First Generation") is an action film that recalls the nail-biting urgency felt by 12-year-olds everywhere of wanting to become a superhero right here, right now, endowed with mind-blowing super powers and a deep wisdom that could never be acquired with a gym membership. You don't want chiseled biceps or sleek thighs, you want to go back to the beginning and be born this way so that you can save the world from a nuclear crisis. Heck yes.
"X-Men: First Class" is a prequel to the famed Hollywood franchise. It's a brilliant and much-needed intravenous vitamin shot the size of a fire hydrant. Remember the "Star Trek" reboot two years back that featured fresh young faces playing the original (and now aged) characters, set at a time when they were whippersnapper space cadets? Apparently that worked so well that prequels may eventually replace sequels as a next-generation marketing device. There's already talk about giving "Pirates of the Caribbean" a similar treatment.