Professor X - Patrick Stewart or James McAovy Magneto - Ian McKellen or Michael Fassbender Beast - Kelsey Grammer or Nicholas Hoult Mystique - Rebecca Romijn or Jennifer Lawrence I know it's going to sound like I'm favoring the first X-Men movies, but I do think they made good casting choices. Patrick Stewart just looks like Xavier, and his voice and manors give off an aire of intelligence and command. Ian McKellen in his scenes with Xavier were more intense and intimate in their conversations. Beast is harder to choose. Grammer's voice still has the intelligence of a well educated man. It could also just be a hold over from his long years as Frasier. Hoult lacks that quality in his voice. Mystique is also hard to choose. Two beautiful women covered in makeup and just a few strategically placed prosthetics. Romijn seems more like Mystique in her look and her fight scenes looked better. Lawrence, also has well choreographed fight scenes but her acting seems to lack the underlying anger that Romijn's does. As an example her conversation with Nightcrawler in X2 when he asks her why she just doesn't look human all the time, and she replies with Because I shouldn't have to. To me that showed her anger at the world and the X-Men for not being on Magneto's side. Side note: Originally I was going to make this post as a comparison between Romijn and Lawrence, but then decided to add the other duplicates.
I think I'll return to this thread in a few weeks when I can see casts both old and new together on screen again. Someone from AMC Movie Talk say DoFP and said it exceeded all her expectations. I will say that the orignal cast of of the first two films were absolutely nperfect, and the first Class cast was - well, close to perfect as well. I can't imagine them doing a much better job. McCavoy is as much Prof. X as Stewart is, and Fassbender is fascinating and so damn compelling. The perfect casting also helps to overlook some minor problems in the storytelling that this series as had. What I love about the series is that I'd like the story and the characters and the issues raised even if there were NO special effects at all.. that there are is just icing on the cake
Then that would include Bolivar Trask -- Bill Duke and Peter Dinklage. Although there's no possible way to reconcile those as the same character, unless he's an ageless shapeshifter. And technically three people have played Hank McCoy, since Steve Bacic appeared as Hank on a TV interview for a few seconds of X2.
The big problem with this comparison as I see it is the first cast plays the characters as we are the most familiar with them from the comics and the tv show, while the second cast is playing younger versions of the characters that we are not nearly as used to seeing being played on screen and on the page. So of course you are going to say that the first cast seems more like the characters we're used to. I think it's kind of unfair to say Jennifer Lawrence's character doesn't have that underlying anger, when the character hadn't gone through all the life experiences yet that really caused it. Same thing for saying that Patrick Stewart's Prof X looks more like him...
Still, IMO comparing Xavier's and Eric's conversations about a vision for mutant kind, Stewart and McKellen both seem much more intent on their own goals while McAvoy and Fassbender seem less interested in the other's vision. True, neither had seen just how dangerous humans would be towards mutants; but Eric did have first hand experience with dangerous humans. Mystique, as a child was homeless, until Xavier took her in. She too had time to develop anger towards humans and at Xavier's request hid her true form. That should have caused more tension and tension tends to lead towards anger. So both Magneto and Mystique knew that humans feared mutants, but only Magneto acted on it and only because of Shaw. Mystique just up and left the man she call friend and brother. Well DoFP may change my view on Mystique, but it'll take a lot to change my view on McAvoy and Fassbender.