There’s a good reason why so many look down their nose at prequel films. Let’s be honest, the overwhelming majority of them are unnecessary at best – as “necessary” as any film actually is – and many of them are genuinely very, very bad.
Prequels are so often a sign of creative bankruptcy or cynicism in Hollywood that audiences can’t really be blamed for their instincts, but all the same, every now and then a prequel comes along that isn’t merely good – it genuinely improves the film that preceded it.
The best most prequels can hope for is to be a solid effort that doesn’t undermine the presence of the original, but the following prequels fearlessly engaged with the original text in a deeply intimate way, and managed to even make it better against the odds. These films expanded the lore of what came before, added emotional dimension to central characters, and overall ensured that revisiting the original movie was a more rewarding experience as a result.
It’s an incredibly tough act to pull off, but every so often a prequel finds the room to enhance what came before.
Even though X-Men: First Class and the ensuing run of prequels stretched credibility to snapping point with regard to the mutants’ ages, it did a fantastic job of exploring the dynamic between younger versions of Professor X and Magneto, played so wonderfully by James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender, respectively.
In addition to lending some much-needed context to their relationship, which in turn fleshes the characters out as we see them in the mainline X-Men films, First Class also brings considerably more dimension to Mystique, performed with aplomb by Jennifer Lawrence – a far cry from her tired work in the role in most of the sequels.
In addition to all this, Matthew Vaughn’s prequel brings a meaningful historical flavour to the franchise, with a neat 1960s setting that cleverly invokes real-world history, making the Cuban Missile Crisis a pivotal part of the finale.
It ain’t perfect, but for all of the pre-release hand-wringing about an X-Men prequel, Vaughn knocked it out of the park while retroactively making the original X-Men trilogy more poignant.
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