X-Men: Apocalypse
Sometimes, a movie can’t always live up to it’s title.
X-Men Apocalypse is the ninth movie in the X-Men film franchise, the third movie of the second trilogy and the third movie with the new timeline that was established in X-Men Days of Future Past (still an excellent movie after multiple viewings). It is set ten years after the events of the aforementioned movie and sees the returning ensemble cast with a few additions most of which are interchangeable and could have been played by anyone and the movie would have still turned out the same way. Since the three weeks of its release, there have been mixed reviews about the movie, ranging from outright negative reviews to middling to a few outright positive reviews.
I have listened to the Flickering Myths podcast where they reviewed the movie and while they said it was a “forgetful movie” and “didn’t thread any new ground”, they did admit that it wasn’t a bad movie. The gripe seems to be based around the fact that the villain could have been any villain and that the consequences would have still been the same. Another gripe is that the “four horsemen” had no character arch, were underutilized, felt soulless and added nothing new to the story. The latter I agree with. You could call them Henchmen 1(Angel), 2(Storm) and 3 (Psylocke), replace them with any other remotely reasonable villain within the 20th Century Fox catalog of villains and the story would play out the exact same way.
The gripe seems to be based around the fact that the villain could have been any villain and that the consequences would have still been the same
Psylocke had absolutely nothing to do in the movie except wear a very revealing outfit. Pray tell though, why couldn’t she have worn something that covered her up? Did the film makers need to make her wear something from the comics? She literally walks away from the movie at the close of it all and she was not even missed either way (do they have something for her to do in future movies? I hope so, because she was sorely wasted here. As an aside though, I wonder how much Olivia Munn was paid for this role).
Angel is first shown in a cage fight (similar to where we first met Wolverine in the first X-Men movie sixteen years ago) having defeated Blob and then later gets defeated by Night-crawler (it is not a spoiler. it does not matter. If you don’t like spoilers in any form, please stop reading now. I love and hate this movie so much that it’s almost impossible to review without spoiling it a bit *you have been warned*) who really does not want to fight but has to because “they will kill them if they refuse to fight”. He (Angel) turns out to be the weakest addition to the franchise as a whole and a serious waste of time and I felt absolutely nothing at the eventual outcome of his character.
Storm, sigh!! Hers is just a case of happenstance. She just happened to be in the wrong (?) place at the right (?) time. Makes you wonder who else should have been in said place at said time. I felt that Storm (played admirably by Alexandra Shipp with what she was given) was underutilized.
We’ve grown to love this character over the past fifteen years in the hands of Halle Berry and this sort of “origin” story is quite pathetic to say the least. The film makers (I’m looking at you Bryan Singer) decided to give her some sort of emotional depth and conflicted feelings and while it has a role to play in the third act, it sort of comes off as a bit rushed and not properly set up.
And the big one, the character that had the worst hand in this film. MAGNETO!!! (I’m so sorry Michael Fassbender, we will always love you in this role). Magneto is a power house. A man that is so powerful, he is easily one of the most powerful mutants in the world. He is not a henchman; he is no one’s lackey. He is in charge always! Beaten yes, conflicted yes, maybe even confused sometimes but he is not under any ones thumb and to see him as Henchman 4 is the biggest gripe I have with this movie.
Magneto is a power house. A man that is so powerful, he is easily one of the most powerful mutants in the world
Yes we could say that Apocalypse took advantage of the pain he was feeling at the time as a result of something that had happened earlier in the movie and that Magneto had never felt this vulnerable but the truth is that I still didn’t like it. X-Men has always been at its strongest when it allowed Magneto to do what he wanted, with Xavier being his ever present conscience (literally! Xavier can speak to this dude even when he’s half a world away through Cerebro) and here they barely get any screen time and that’s downright sad. Suffice to say that I would have preferred it if Magneto had been on the outside looking in and not having him being toyed with. I sort of feel pained watching a character that is all powerful being played for a fool by another character who thinks he knows it all but is really just naive.
Yes we could say that Apocalypse took advantage of the pain he was feeling at the time as a result of something that had happened earlier in the movie and that Magneto had never felt this vulnerable but the truth is that I still didn’t like it
And that brings me to the villain of this movie who comes across as a third rate villain. This is f******g APOCALYPSE for crying out loud!!!! He is basically the Thanos of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and Darkseid of DC. You don’t just bring him into your universe unless you’re going to do something HUGE with him and I mean HUGE. You don’t bring him into just one movie and end him (if you don’t know the villain dies then you haven’t been watching superhero movies for a long time and I don’t care about you. Stop reading now) just like that! You set him up for a movie or two. Allow his character to breathe, allow us to see how super powered he is and let us be in awe of him. He’s facing the X-Men before they have even fully developed their powers and he has issues dealing with them?!
When I saw this movie the first time, I thought it was okay but after thinking about it for a period of time, I am pissed! I don’t even know if this is a review or a rant. Maybe it’s a bit of both but don’t get me wrong, it isn’t a bad movie and is still way better than a certain superhero movie that came out earlier in the year with two principal caped heroes (I didn’t say anything). I don’t say anything about the usual suspects Jean Grey, Night-crawler, Beast, Raven/Mystic because what they do here, we’ve seen them do over the course of many movies. Night-crawler did have a few funny scenes that lightened an otherwise dreary situation at just the right moments and those were genuine laugh out loud moments for me and many others at the packed cinema.
The entire movie felt like a setup for another movie and an introduction for Dark Phoenix and I felt that while it was cool, it could have been held back for one more movie when she would have developed her powers a bit more. That’s the real problem with franchise movies set in large universes. There always seems to be a plan, there’s usually something they’re planning towards and thus the film doesn’t feel contained and tight like the X-Men movies of old. Charles Xavier played like a charm by James McAvoy is still my best character in this new series. He is fantastic! He is deep, he is haunted and in the end, he cannot fight alone and needs the help of others. It takes a true leader to know when he has to delegate and who doesn’t try to do everything himself. I thought Xavier had the deepest character arc in this film second only to Magneto and I also feel he has the best scene too. I would have wished the movie ended before the Dark Phoenix reveal, it would have been so sublime.
At the end of the day, X-Men Apocalypse is an okay movie with good scenes and bad scenes. It is not an excellent movie but an okay one (Yes, I know I said it twice. Now you get the point). It has really lovely scenes; the Quicksilver scene being an absolute gem and I wish they would have given that much attention to detail and care to the entire movie. The Wolverine scene was also pretty awesome and kind of makes you imagine what an R-rated Wolverine movie would be like and that I definitely look forward to seeing. If you are an X-Men fan, you will enjoy this movie. If you like superhero movies but aren’t big on action, you will love this movie. If you want a movie that is deep and has major consequences, please skip this movie because you will be sorely disappointed.
The Wolverine scene was also pretty awesome and kind of makes you imagine what an R-rated Wolverine movie would be like and that I definitely look forward to seeing
I’d give it 6 out of 10. Heck I’d give it at 7. I liked the build-up, I liked the characters from Xavier’s end and I thought Magneto was really cool and that his story was touching up until the point that he became Apocalypse’s henchman. After that the movie just played by the numbers for me until it got to the Jean Gray/Charles Xavier/Apocalypse mind three way and I enjoyed that very much. I was upset that the Four Horsemen didn’t have any character development and I was upset that Magneto was one of them because I did not believe that he could ever allow someone else to lead him as he already has deep rooted convictions about what is right and wrong where Mutants and Humans are concerned. I understand the gripe with the main villain, it was kind of upsetting that he died after just one movie and I felt he could have been the villain for at least three more because he is indeed that powerful in the comics.
After that the movie just played by the numbers for me until it got to the Jean Gray/Charles Xavier/Apocalypse mind three way and I enjoyed that very much
I understand that we have seen the good vs. evil many times before and I could argue that we have seen the exact same story with Avengers: Age of Ultron, but I will still say that X-Men Apocalypse was a well made movie and ranks as number three on my superhero list of the year.
Final Score: 6/10
