X-Men Second Class

I saw X-Men First Class at a special preview the other week, and I - and pretty much the whole audience - seemed generally underwhelmed...
On the morning I was going to see it, my chum asked me if I was excited... To be honest, I wasn't! You see, I really hate the way they dick around with continuity in the X-Men movies. Yeah I know, it's a different set-up etc, but in my opinion, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And I wouldn't mind either, if some of the changes weren't so brainless and ill-considered (see below)
So now it's really surprising me that a lot of friends and people - and even comic fans - seem to be loving X-Men First Class... Really?? I think it's pretty insulting to comic fans, to be honest, the way they've pointlessly changed so many things.
Overall, I felt the movie dragged in places, felt like a Thunderbirds movie in other places, and in all the other places it was really uneven (c'mon, where did Emma go??). But this is supposed to be the start of a trilogy, so hopefully when its all found its feet, things will improve (let's face it, X-Men 1 was good but not amazing either. But I preferred that to this mess.)
Maybe the best way to look at it is to look at each character:
Prof X - stop putting your finger by the side of your head, it's really boring. And stop over-acting. I liked seeing how he lost the use of his legs - I wasn't expecting that - I was waiting for him to lose his hair!
Magneto - James Bond.
Mystique - She seemed to do a lot of screaming! What a wimp. C'mon, Raven's not a wimp! And why does she have to have those stupid scales?
Beast - very good, but a shame the transformation is spoiled by the trailer.
Darwin - was promising!
Angel - I quite liked her, altho her end fight got a bit monotonous. It'd be nice if the fact she's called Angel ties in with Warren Worthington.
Moira - A cool character... but aaargh! Why is she an American CIA agent? Why? She's a Scottish scientist in XMen 3. Och lordy! Moira will be spinning in her grave!
Emma - Oh January... You are very sexy, even if you don't have massive hooters, but put a little effort in hon! I mean in the comics, Emma is FIERCE, but here, she was just ...dull. And why confuse things with the diamond form thing? This could have been a true break-out role for some up-and-coming actress... And if this was Twilight, they'd probably change the actress for the next movie.
Shaw - Well yes, one of the best superhero movie villains ever, I reckon. However... Now don't all laugh at once... A) I didn't realise it was Kevin Bacon (there are so many lookalike actors these days and I feel a bit left behind!)... so B) I didn't realise Shaw was the Nazi guy... Yes, looking back there was that photo thing, but I guess I just zoned out... The whole moustache thing threw me... And at the end of the day, I wasn't particularly expecting Shaw (the guy I know from the comics) to have worked in a Nazi camp. I mean, why would he be?
Azazel - shit make-up, and over-use of the teleportation stuff. I mean, we wanted more of Nightcrawler's powers in X2, but I wanted less of Azazel.
Riptide - yes, that was Riptide! From the Marauders! But Mr Vaughn and Ms Goldman, how can you have a prominent character in a movie and not even say who he is, why he's there, and what he's doing? I gotta say, I think this movie's creators are over-rated. I sat twiddling my thumbs thru half of Kickass, but that just seems to be me.
Banshee - why can't he be Irish?
Havok - Please don't tell me he's gonna turn out to be Cyclops' FATHER...
The two special cameos - brilliant!
That's all I have to say...