Stars: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Kevin Bacon, Rose Byrne, January Jones, Oliver Platt, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Zoe Kravitz, Jason Flemying, Lucas Till Caleb Landry Jones, Alex Gonzalez
Running time: 132 mins
Rating: ****

THESE days when a franchise runs out of steam, the producers simply go back to the beginning.

Rather than make a sequel too many, they manufacture a prequel. The brand name is still the selling point but there’s a new cast to sell to the audience, even if the effects-laden action remains familiar.

After three movies and a Wolverine spin-off, X-Men goes back to basics – to the origins of the saga and how Charles Xavier, aka Professor X, and Erik Lehnsherr, aka Magneto, became deadly rivals.

With Kick-Ass, director Matthew Vaughn showed he could transfer a comic story from page to screen with ease. X-Men: First Class is a similarly accomplished piece of movie-making that attempts, and for the most part succeeds, in delivering a summer blockbuster with a modicum of intelligence.

The casting is a big help. James McAvoy’s Xavier and Michael Fassbender’s Lehnsherr (before he turned bad and adopted the Magneto monicker) turn from friends into deadly enemies. They’re opposite sides of the coin who take very different paths in life. Both have special powers but chose to use them in different ways – one for good, one for evil.

The Sixties setting is used to good effect (and I don’t just mean the plenthora of mini-skirted dolly birds, as attractive and nostalgic as they are) to utilise a real life global concern in the film’s climax as the Cold War sees the X:Men (and women) in the making tackling the Cuban missile crisis.

Xavier and Lehnsherr gather together a mini-army of mutants to combat the evil intentions of Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon, being beastly). His right-hand woman is the generously-endowed Emma Frost. Mad Men’s January Jones inhabits this character who’s apt to “grow” a crystal-like, indestructible skin in times of danger.

By the end, the mutants have split into two camps after learning how to use and abuse their powers during the course of the movie. Among them Jennifer Lawrence, Oscar nomianted for Winter’s Bone, is Mystique.

Skins actor Nicholas Hoult’s geeky Hank turns into The Beast and Lucas Till’s Havok throws rings of super-heated energy waves at his opponents.

Along with Thor, X-Men: First Class gets the summer superhero season off to a flying start.