X-Men: First Class launches today country-wide across cinema screens, and I was invited to the preview screening courtesy of Nu-Metro. I also asked a good friend, the owner of Reader’s Den comic shop, to tag along and give me his professional opinion of the film. This, the fifth film in the X-Men movie canon, is set in the 1970s and tells the story of the genesis of the X-Men. Usually, the more sequels there are in a film series, the worse the quality becomes, until it is a writhing, painful mess that is eventually left to rot in a dank, fetid corner, tossed aside with yesteryear’s garbage. However, X-Men is a highly beloved franchise, and First Class is less a sequel than a prequel. How does it stack up to its elders? Read the spoiler-free (as much as is reasonable, anyhow) review after the jump.