“X-Men: First Class” shows the epic beginning of the X-Men saga, the tale of secret global events that changed history. As mutants began to emerge from mankind and before Professor Xavier was enemies with Magneto, they were just two young men, the best of friends discovering their powers and how they fit into the world. With characters we have seen in the original X-Men trilogy and many new to the screen, 20th Century Fox is releasing more personal and revealing character trailers that show us more about each mutant than we have learned from the previous TV spots and videos.
Nicholas Hoult is Henry McCoy (aka Beast), a character who has always been more about brains than brawn. When he was younger, he was very athletic and acrobatic, training his brain to learn more about the mutations that plagued him and others.
Kelsey Grammar did an admirable job portraying this character in 2006’s “X-Men: The Last Stand,” but with barely any screen time and no back story, that was not the film in which to showcase this character. From what I’ve seen, “X-Men: First Class” is looking to be the right venue to gives us the Beast we have always wanted.
In this trailer, he reveals his ape-like feet and you see chemistry between him and Raven Darkholme. With each having mutations that will eventually make them outcasts of human society, you can see how it would be appealing to be close with someone who knows what you are going through. This relationship is something that I have personally never heard of before; they are not only re-inventing the characters and storyline shown in the previous X-Men trilogy — they are expanding it to include a lot of back story on characters they haven’t shown the past to.
The end of this spot shows us a very violent and traumatic transformation of Hank McCoy into Beast from a firsthand point-of-view. This was a very cool way to literally put the audience in his shoes. I can only assume this transformation happens in the middle of the film because in the previous trailer, we see Beast in all of his glory flying the X-Jet in what appears to be the final battle in the film.
So do you think the changes they have made to Beast are improvements? Do you like the love story they are setting up between Beast and Mystique? Leave us a comment and let us know!
Starring James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, January Jones, Kevin Bacon, Jennifer Lawrence, Rose Byrne, Nicolas Hoult, Zoё Kravitz and Lucas Till, “X-Men: First Class” opens everywhere June 3.
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