Everyone likes a good comic book film. Well, perhaps their appeal isn’t quite universal, but any cast list including James McAvoy can’t be completely doomed. The latest incarnation of the X-Men franchise is something of a history lesson, albeit one filled with mutants wearing tight fitting leather suits and a rather novel take on the averting of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Against a backdrop of Cold War intrigue, the origin of Professor X and Magneto’s enmity is revealed.

It’s not as if director Matthew Vaughn is new to the superhero gambit, his own ‘back story’ including critical success with Kick Ass; in many ways a homage to the genre itself. First Class is a little lacklustre in comparison. Whilst the opening, set in a Poland concentration camp (as indeed the first X-Men movie was) is powerful and provides a depth to Erik Lehnsherr (a.k.a Magneto) as a character, similarly affective scenes are somewhat elusive. That being said, McAvoy and Michael Fassbender as Xavier and Lehnsherr respectively form a dynamic pair. Everything else is a bit peripheral.

With classy 1960s interiors, a blond femme fatale who’s literally as tough as diamonds and an ageless villain plotting global nuclear annihilation within the mirrored bowels of a submarine, the Bond films’ influence on Vaughn is clear to see. Certainly there’s a lot to look at. However, the ‘Us versus Them’ evil mutant motto wears a little thin by the end (though having studied human origins I enjoyed Lehnsherr’s comparison of normal people with Neanderthals). Out of a long list of evolutionarily superior individuals with special abilities perhaps Hank McCoy’s character is of particular note-as he showed in A Single Man, Nicholas Holt can do more than provide a passable American accent, and in this film does a good job of playing a large and indiscriminate blue furry creature.

The special effects save the day, along with James McAvoy’s intense blue eyes. Some interesting ideas are thrown in, such as a split screen sequence in the middle, but they lack continuity with the rest of the film. Whilst the protagonists are fun to watch, this is ultimately only second class standard.