To say that X-Men: First Class has had a troubled production would be a bit of an understatement.

There have been rumors that the film began shooting without a complete script, the production has certainly not been leisurely (Matthew Vaughn came onboard as director only in May — thirteen months before the film’s release date), the cast went through a few swaps before being locked down and almost all the promotional material has been sketchy at best, disastrous at worst (barring the teaser trailer).

However, with little more than a month to go for the film’s US release, the final trailer is here and it kicks ass.

 

You can download the trailer in HD from here

That looks AMAZING. The style, the atmosphere, the cast… it all just works for me. James McAvoy & Michael Fassbender seem to make a great combo and every single exchange they have is a home-run. In particular, Fassbender’s delivery of “You want society to accept you… but you can’t even accept yourself.” gives me chills.

Fox’s treatment of this franchise has been far from perfect, and part of me feels we’ve permanently lost a great adaptation of the Jean Grey/Phoenix storyline with X-Men: The Last Stand. But, this time around, they seem to have finally hit upon the winning formula. Here’s the official synopsis -

X-MEN FIRST CLASS charts the epic beginning of the X-Men saga, and reveals a secret history of famous global events. Before mutants had revealed themselves to the world, and before Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr took the names Professor X and Magneto, they were two young men discovering their powers for the first time. Not archenemies, they were instead at first the closest of friends, working together with other Mutants (some familiar, some new), to prevent nuclear Armageddon. In the process, a grave rift between them opened, which began the eternal war between Magneto’s Brotherhood and Professor X’s X-Men.

I also like how they’ve integrated events like the Cuban Missile Crisis into the plot. I feel like that gives the proceedings a weight they otherwise might not have had.

X-Men: First Class opens in US (and worldwide, hopefully) theaters on June 3rd, 2011.

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