First things first, there is NO stupid 3D, you can relax. Feeling better? Good, let us continue then right on to the quick summarising 2nd point - X-men First Class is pretty decent as summer superhero movies go and well worth a watch if you're out looking for something to see. If that's all you wanted to hear, job done, go watch young/old man/woman.

This then is the much anticipated X-men First Class, or X-men Origins: Professor X & Magneto if you will. The story of how they met, became friends, became enemies and ultimately divided the mutant world. If i'm giving anything away here...have you never read or seen an X-men comic/movie before? For shame.

The backstory of Xavier, Eric and Mystique provides the primary focus, and it's fairly well if rapidly done. Indeed many of my favourite scenes are in the first 1/3 of the movie, from Xavier's suave sophisticated ladiesman act, through Eric's smoldering rage, to Mystique's vulnerability. And many of these elements are very well shot, I particularly liked Xaviers bar scene, and the camera switch (you'll know it when you see it) in one of Erics youthful scenes is masterful.

The middle is where I feel the movie falls down, trying to rapidly bring Eric and Xavier together, give them focus, form the X-men, train them...usually this take the entire 1st half of an X-men movie. Here we're trying to squeeze all that, plus a plot into a 1/3rd, and it really does suffer as a result. Forgettable is the word.

Fairly rapidly though (yes i'm deliberately using rapidly a lot) we arrive at our final climatic ending. And in true summer superhero style it has big explosions, whizzing action, dramatic moments and a few bangs. All in all exactly what you're paying your money for. However I have to say whilst it was good, I was left thinking it could have been far far better, i'm not sure if they were sticking to canon as i've never read this particular backstory for the X-men. But if they were, I have to say some artistic licence would have been nice. Either way i'd be interested in discussing it with someone who both knows canon and has seen the movie.

X-men First Class then is exactly what I said above, a pretty decent summer superhero blockbuster. I think a lot of things could have been done better, but that doesn't detract from what it does deliver. Yes it suffers a tad story and character wise from its rapid pace, but this is driven by the need to cram so much into 2 hours and as such is understandable. And indeed this rapid pace does drive the movie on throughout. If you are looking for a ranking, it's certainly better than X-Men Origins:Wolverine and X-Men 3: Last Stand, but not as good as 1 & 2, though I feel it could have been.

Special mention for 3 things: Kevin Bacon speaking German as a creepy Nazi camp doctor, i'd be interested to know how good his accent was from any German natives; the roll call of old 80s stars, not least Kevin Bacon, i'll let you discover the other ones yourself; Jennifer Lawrence as Raven/Mystique, I cannot remember the last time a woman looked so stunningly beautiful on screen, maybe that's just me though.