“X-Men: First Class” trailer now in session

Who says your trailer has to debut during the Super Bowl? 20th Century Fox has finally released the trailer for this summer’s “X-Men: First Class” starring James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender as a young Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr (Magneto). The film was directed by Matthew Vaughn and produced in part by original “X-Men” director Bryan Singer.

The trailer aims for subtlety, knowing that it really has to drum-up interest if it’s going to steal some attention away from the other superhero tentpoles being released by the other studios this summer. The “X-Men” brand does have a bigger reach than “Thor,” “Green Lantern” or “Captain America,” but it was rushed into production last summer.

The trailer also carefully sets up the prequel nature of the movie and emphasizes that it’s a period film taking place in the ’60s. John F. Kennedy’s speech on the Cuban Missile Crisis plays in the background and serves as a catalyst to the action in the trailer, meaning that the threat of nuclear war must be what sets the X-Men in motion.

All the film’s major characters are teased in some way. We see a quick shot of Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique, Nicholas Hoult as Beast (and transforming into Beast), some action from Azazel (Jason Flemyng), who sired Nightcrawler, Emma Frost (January Jones) and Lucas Till as Havok, a relative of Cyclops (hence the red beams you see). That’s just a bit. Seeing as the trailer times at 1:51, my guess is we’ll see a fuller trailer come spring time as most full trailers are two and a half minutes.