“X-Men: First Class” doesn’t hit the spot

Marvel’s “X-Men” comics have been around since the 1960s. Never a big comic freak, I wasn’t really aware of them until three decades later when I dated a woman whose 5-year-old son tried to, on occasion, go all Wolverine on me.

I quickly began reading, if only to find out what I needed to do to survive. And while I can’t say that I’m an “X-Men” expert, I do know a little about them. And what little I knew from the comics was augmented by the movie series, which began in 2000 with Bryan Singer’ s original 2000 effort.

Three movies followed, including the 2009 spinoff “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” which gave Hugh Jackman his best chance yet to be an A-list movie star. And now, however, we have a fourth, “X-Men: First Class.”. And in many ways, it looked to have a good chance to be among the best.

For one thing, it cast two interesting actors in the main leads: James McAvoy as Charles Xavier and Michael Fassbender as Erik Lehnsherr, the men who would start out as rivals, become friends then morph into deadly enemies with humankind’s/mutantkind’s entwined fates resting on the outcome.

But … that’s about it, really. Other than giving Lehnsherr/Magneto an interesting back story, most everything about “X-Men: First Class” feels either derivative or, worse, cheesy. Probably the worst part is the secondary casting, which not only uses too many overly familiar actors from various other sources ( Michael Ironside ? Please), including - for no discernible reason that I can think of - the ubiquitous Kevin Bacon as the arch villain.

If another “X-Men” movie comes along, I’ll go see it. I can’t help myself (maybe I need to keep finding ways of protecting myself). But I’m holding no hope that it’ll be anything special.

Not unless they bring back Bryan Singer. And, surprise, surprise, he’s involved in bringing “Battlestar Galactica” to the big screen.

Can’t wait for that one.

Below : The trailer for “X-Men: First Class.”