How do you revive a flagging franchise that sinks deeper with each new installment? You go back to the beginning. It’s the early 1960s, at the height of the Cold War, and the paths of two mutants are about to cross. Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) is a young professor—an expert on genetic mutations with a number of mental powers. Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender) is a Holocaust survivor who can manipulate metal—he has a vendetta against a Nazi officer responsible for his mother’s death. That’s right; they’re the future Professor X and Magneto.
It’s rare that a trip to the cinema proves to be anything but predictable these days, so surely another outing with Po would involve jokes about gluttony, being unfit and a geeky love of martial arts, right? Well, yes, but what you don’t see in the trailer is this film’s tremendous heart.
