I don't think every movie has a responsibility to bear the balance of race relations, but I do think that the X:Men First Class people should have given their movie a once over at the prematurely dead black guy (he can't seriously be dead, though--isn't his point that he can't die???) and the black chick from the wrong side of the tracks that goes bad. If that's the net effect of your movie, look at the landscape as a whole and think...do I *need* to do this, or can I tell a good story without that slant?
I liked the movie, so bear in mind my nit pickings are pickings in the face of liking it even more than Thor so far this season. Magneto and Professor X were absolutely amazing. When did everything get so gay? Everything is so gay.
Anyway, onto the nitpicking...some of it is about divergence from the comics, some of it apparently happens in the comics too.
Why do the XMen need a separate dissimilar Angel who isn't particularly angelic, nor anti-angelic? It's just confusing. Why use Alec Summers? Especially if you're going to flash past Scott Summers in the mutant census. Mystique and Professor X going way back? Why? I'm guessing all four preceding movies are out the window, then. There's no way to work any of them in with this.
January Jones was a weak-assed Emma Frost. She was as naked as Emma needed to be, but not as sexy. She's supposed to be aggressively on all the time--vamp vamp vamp. She just looked second tier. Disappointing.
I usually think of Sebastian Shaw as a bigger guy. But Kevin Bacon is looking really good.
They also switched the nationality of two characters to American, and I don't know why. One was even played by a British actress.