Not how evolution works

X-Men: First Class (DVD/Blu-Ray) - Dir. Matthew Vaughn. Starring James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence.

X-Men prequel film that's consistent with the quality of the first two movies (the good ones).

Set in the 1960s, X-Men: First Class follows the two young men who go on to become Professor X and Magneto (played by James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender) as they are recruited by the CIA to track down fellow members of a newly emerging race of superhuman mutants.

In their search for X-Men characters who have yet to make their big screen debut, the writers delved deep into the terrible bowels of comic book canon, coming back with third-rate bug and bat-inspired superheroes better left to the pages of superhistory. There's no escaping their cheesiness, and no ignoring it in a film that aims to find a place among the "serious and gritty" comic book films of today.

But putting its 1960s legacy aside, The Last Stand is a well-paced action adventure with a cohesive (and appropriately melodramatic) plot. It juggles its huge cast of characters capably enough and provides a satisfying, if slightly rushed, back-story to the Professor X/Magneto relationship.

With actors and even entire scenes from the past films transplanted into the picture one moment and continuity-smashing plot twists inserted the next, the movie seems undecided on whether it wants to be a direct prequel to the previous films or establish a universe of its own a la 2009's Star Trek. It's a slight problem because the film is really only above average in the context of that greater timeline-it gains layers of depth from the other movies and adds layers in return in a way that the Wolverine spinoff failed to do.

In the end, this is a mainstream sci-fi action movie, and it doesn't matter. Considering how much pseudoscience the film already contains, we might as well just blame it on quantum: it can be simultaneously a prequel and a reboot provided you don't look at it too closely.

X-Men: First Class is a well-rounded origin story and stands on its own as a full-fledged entry into one of the better comic book film franchises.

Rated PG-13 for January Jones' lifeless stare.
3.5 out of 5

Everything Must Go (DVD/Blu-Ray) - Dir. Dan Rush. Starring Will Ferrell, Rebecca Hall, Christopher Jordan Wallace.

Fired from his job, left by his wife, and locked out of the house after his latest relapse, alcoholic former executive Nick Halsey (Will Ferrell) starts living on his front lawn among his ejected possessions. Eventually he befriends a neighbor kid (Christopher Jordan Wallace) and begins to sell everything he owns for a fresh start.

Ferrell, who must feel he's reached that special time in every comic actor's life, does well in a dramatic role. He plays an ordinary man with ordinary flaws. The story allows room for flashes of charm and wit, but Ferrell resists the temptation to ham things up as past comedians on this path have tended to do.

Everything Must Go is unusually upbeat for a film about an alcoholic who has hit bottom. Besides the drinking, there isn't much sign that Ferrell's character is dwelling on the loss of his job or his wife, whose only appearance is through a note left on the door. Nick rolls with the punches in a way that's just a punchline or two short of being comical. He's not so much depressed as uninterested in participating in society any longer. .

But it also limits the potential of the film, which has low stakes and low payoffs. There are no great highs or lows and no sweeping character transformations to be found here. Everything Must Go succeeds at being what it tries to be: ordinary.

Rated R for comedian disillusionment.
3.5 out of 5