Although superhero stories have a long history of reimagining their characters (much less recasting actors in the same role), few have done so as effectively as Matthew Vaughn’s X-Men: First Class. James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence and Nicholas Hoult step into the spandex of their cinematic predecessors Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Rebecca Romijn and Kelsey Grammer, respectively, not just rebooting the film series for a new generation but reimagining the characters in a context that adds depth and perspective on their behavior in the previous films.
