Farmers Insurance's lighthearted "University of Farmers" TV ads a worth watching for one reason, and pretty much only one reason: They cast the terrific J.K. Simmons (J. Jonah Jameson of Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy) as a no-nonsense instructor who puts his students through the paces, usually with the help of inventive visual aids (or, in one instance, a flamethrower).

With its newest ad, "X-Change Student," Farmers ventures into movie-marketing territory with a tie-in to -- you guessed it! -- Fox's X-Men: First Class. Premiering this morning, the TV spot features Beast -- although definitely not Nicholas Hoult -- as the new student at University of Farmers, subjected to a barrage of questions from his classmates. Meanwhile, his counterpart at "the X-Men school" is used by Havok as target practice (Lucas Till in a clip from the movie).

Directed by Matthew Vaughn, X-Men: First Class stars James McAvoy as Charles Xavier, Michael Fassbender as Erik Lensherr, Nicholas Hoult as Hank McCoy, Jennifer Lawrence as Raven Darkholme, January Jones as Emma Frost, Lucas Till as Alex Summers, Caleb Landry Jones as Sean Cassidy, Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw, Edi Gathegi as Darwin, Oliver Platt as the Man in Black, Jason Flemyng as Azazel, Rose Byrne as Moira MacTaggart and Zoe Kravitz as Angel Salvadore. It opens on June 3.