X-Men: First Class director Matthew Vaughn fittingly pitched his latest movie as something of a mutant, splicing together the X-Men franchise with the classic Bond movies of the 1960's. And while some may raise an eyebrow in the manner of a perturbed Roger Moore, fearing that such a strange fusion could only end in something risibly camp, the presence of Bond in First Class turns out, for the most part, to be a positive influence.

Set in 1962 - the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the release of Dr. No - First Class has much in common with those early Bond films. It's set in a world of espionage and experimental technology, tacit nuclear threat and migrating hemlines. But where exactly is the SPECTRE of Bond at its strongest?

007 has always been an aspirational protagonist: the man who men want to be and who women want to be with. And during the swinging sixties, when international travel was available only to the rich and famous, Bond's jet-set lifestyle was an integral part of the films' glitzy allure.Bond travelled to Jamaica (Dr. No) and Japan ( You Only Live Twice ) at a time when few had visited these distant, exotic places.But First Class is so geographically restless it makes the typical Bond movie look like a provincial curmudgeon with a fear of flying. With the swiftness of a 'bamfing' Nightcrawler, the film takes in Germany, Switzerland, Argentina, England, Russia, several locations in the US (Las Vegas, Florida, CIA Headquarters, New York), before concluding in Cuba.But as in the Bond movies, it's not simply a waste of air miles. The extensive travel has an important plot function, too. First Class isn't a quaint tale of local peril - like the best Bond movies, if the bad guy wins, it will have universal ramifications.

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Another indispensable element of a Bond film is the Bond girl. They are the women who can't resist James's charm, and have become symbols of sex and glamour in their own right.Perhaps the closest First Class gets to a genuine Bond girl is Sebastian Shaw's left-hand woman, Emma Frost . Her wardrobe - contractually obliged, it seems, to cover no more than 20% of her body at one time - is strictly in keeping with the risque garb of Bond's long list of squeezes. From a white bikini top, to lingerie and suspenders, to a white leather catsuit, Frost's outfits would not look out of place on Honey Rider or Tatiana Romanova.However, Frost is not mere eye candy. As her alternate diamond form implies, she is a tough character (though such is the quality of her performance, Jones might as well transform into soggy cardboard), having more in common with later, less-helpless Bond girls, such as Anya Amasova in The Spy Who Loved Me . A former KGB agent, Amasova was more than a formidable match for Bond, just as Frost's telepathy is portrayed as more than a match for Xavier's psychic power.But First Class is blessed with supporting female characters who would cut it as Bond girls: when we first meet her Angel, she is a sexy yet deadly go-go dancer; Mystique's uncovered blue form would not look out of place writhing in a Bond title sequence; even the relatively staid Moira McTaggart (the spy who loves Charles) strips down to her bra and suspenders within the first twenty minutes to infiltrate the Hellfire Club.