The movie starts at a German concentration camp in occupied Poland in 1944, scientist Dr. Schmidt[6] observes young Erik Lensherr bend a metal gate with his mind when the child is separated from his parents. In his office, Schmidt orders Lensherr to similarly move a Nazi coin on a desk, and kills his mother when the child cannot. In his grief and anger, Lensherr's magnetic power manifests, killing two guards and destroying the room, to Schmidt's delight.

At a mansion in Westchester County, New York, young telepath Charles Xavier meets homeless young shape-shifter Raven. Overjoyed to meet someone else "different" like him, he invites her to live with his family.

You don’t have to be an expert on the Marvel Comics’ mutant franchise to enjoy this origins story, set in the early 1960s. Actually, the film begins even earlier in a concentration camp, where Erik, a young boy with magnetic powers is separated from his parents.

The evil Dr. Schmidt, played by Kevin Bacon, kills his mother and unleashes upon the world, a damaged superhero, or as Erik describes himself: Frankenstein’s monster.

Meanwhile, his future nemesis Charles, played by James McAvoy, is at Oxford using clever lines about genes to pick up pretty women. Charles and Erik, played by Michael Fassbender, soon become part of the CIA mutant division and find themselves in the midst of the Cuban missile crisis.

In this version of history at least, World War 3 was avoided only because the mutants intervened. X-Men: First Class is a furiously busy movie.

There are half-a-dozen location shifts, an equal number of characters that we must pay attention to and reams of plot, all layered with life-lessons on being different and fitting in. But director Matthew Vaughn manages to hold the narrative together.

The solid story-telling is enhanced by strong performances, especially by Fassbender, who is at once, furious, fractured and tragic. Fassbender and McAvoy have great chemistry.