X-Men: Apocalypse Review

 

I try not to be too hard on the X-Men movies. I loved the X-Men cartoon when I was little and I casually kept up with various X-Men storylines in the comics, and it’s a brilliant concept that champions civil rights and individuality while remaining a part of the collective. There have now been 6 film adaptations (not including any of Wolverine’s stand alone films), and two of them have been awesome (X2 and First Class), while the rest are admirable efforts at best (and X3: The Last Stand deserves to be stricken from our collective memories and buried in a shallow grave in the desert).

X-Men: Apocalypse is a mediocre action film. It suffered under the weight of Bryan Singer’s hubris and the choice to set the recent films so far apart from each other without even attempting to explain the timey-wimey-wibbly-wobbly inconsistencies between this setting and the previous films’ settings. Mystique and Wolverine can get away with seemingly never aging because of their mutant powers, but it was supremely distracting to me that Magneto/Xavier look around 38 when in 1983 they should be at least 50; Alex Summers should be about 40 which makes it strange that he looks 25 and his parents only look about 55 and his younger brother is 16, and Beast is also pushing 40 but looks 25.

Also off-putting was a lack of blue on screen: Beast and Mystique were of non-mutant appearance for 90% of the film, with lazy explanations such as “I’ve got my DNA under control with meds” and “I don’t want to look like the hero everyone worships so I’ll stay blonde.” At least they made an effort to address these disparities from when we last saw these characters, especially Mystique, whose former motto used to be “Mutant and Proud!” I’ve increasingly become disenchanted with Jennifer Lawrence, who clearly was wholly disinterested in reprising her role for this sequel. The other big hitters (McAvoy, Fassbender) weren’t much better but I didn’t get the impression that they were just phoning it in; a lot of their dialogue and plot points were simply terrible.

Another bummer was the complete lack of character development for any of the new characters. Granted, we all know who Storm and Nightcrawler are, and long time fans will know their various back stories. But I don’t think we ever even heard Storm’s name uttered at all in the whole flick, and poor Nightcrawler was basically just a walking joke. Jean Grey, as portrayed by Sansa Stark (yeah yeah I know her real name is Sophie Turner but I can’t see her as anything but Sansa), was a step up from the exceedingly awful performances from Famke Janssen, but the writing was such that her build up literally seconds before the film’s climax felt unearned or incomplete somehow.

I'd pay to see Phoenix saga done correctly, so this was welcome

 

The only time we see her struggle with controlling her powers is during the nightmare she has when Apocalypse is out and about, which shakes the school, and melts the wall paper off her bedroom walls. Worst of all? JUBILEE IS THERE WITH DIALOGUE AND DOES NOTHING THE WHOLE FLICK. Criminal underuse of a beloved character: she might as well have not even been in the damn movie.

On the bright side, Evan Peter’s return as Quicksilver was as gleefully enjoyable as in X-Men: Days of Future Past. His rescue sequence and one sided fight with Apocalypse were the best parts in the movie, IMHO. Aside from Hugh Jackman’s wordless cameo as Weapon X, that is. One day’s worth of work from Jackman did a lot to improve the quality of this film, although a ton of people are crying PLOT HOLE about it. I too was confused initially because when we last saw Logan, he had been rescued at the end of the last film from the water by Mystique disguised as William Stryker, not Stryker himself – but it’s been ten years since that happened, so I guess he could have been recruited or captured since then for his adamantium claw-ization.

As for the big bad himself: easily the most ridiculous aspect of this film. The opening sequence of his Ancient Egyptian transfer into Oscar Issac’s mutant body (he appears to have Wolverine’s healing factor) was cool enough; the set design was impressive and the sequence was fun to watch. But are we really supposed to believe that two support beams are wholly responsible for the architectural stability of a giant pyramid!? I feel like that must have been an awfully clever architect to have designed a flaw so specific to that assassination plot that it worked without a hitch. Also, I appreciate that they were trying to provide a reason as to how En- Sabah-Nur came to possess so many different mutant abilities, but the transferring of consciousness gimmick came off painfully hokey to me. Also painfully hokey? His character design. I know Oscar Issac signed on assuming he would provide the voice and the motion capture performance for Apocalypse as per an interview, but for whatever reason Singer thought it would be best to bog down Issac’s face in shitty prosthetics and have the 5’8” actor portray a larger-than-life monster. He just looked B-Movie level bad to me, and I couldn’t take his operatic megalomaniacal speeches seriously. 

Also – he doesn’t ever really utilize any of his powers except to tweak his pet projects, the Four Horsemen. What the hell was the point of all of his version –ups if he doesn’t even bother using the powers he’s accumulated for his nefarious purpose!?

 

The whole Four Horseman thing was a solid failure in execution. Ok, he wants 4 body guards essentially to help him carry out his plan. I’m still profoundly confused as to why he chose Angel – sure, he can fly – but that’s it! I would want someone a bit more dynamic. However that’s true to the comics so that’s more of a beef I have with Marvel. Storm and Magneto make sense because their powers can seriously fuck shit up for other people. Psylocke was also a wasted opportunity – I think they chose her just so that they could have a hot chick on screen, because aside from fighting with her telepathically created weapons, she literally offered nothing. She was so one dimensional it was laughable. Plus: how uncomfortable were you with her making tough guy faces in a purple bondage outfit at Auschwitz? I already personally disliked Olivia Munn so this did nothing to improve my opinion of her acting skills.

Overall, I didn’t hate the movie, but it didn’t impress me any. I’d rank Apocalypse it at a 5, with only X3 worse than it. I liked the end sequence in which Jean Grey Phoenixs out and kills Apocalypse and the Quicksilver bits and Wolverine’s massacre, but that’s about it. I’d wait until it comes out on blu-ray if you haven’t already paid theater money for it.