X-Men Apocalypse: Is it any good?
Apocalypse might be one of oldest villains from X-Men. in X-Men Apocalypse, Brian Singer tries to bring him into 2016 and showcase a story from 1983. Even then many people in the movie does seem to have their mobiles phones and smart watches tied to. (Prof. I’m looking at you) Is that movie’s biggest sin though? Not by the least.
What did I think? Watchable but Empty.
Apocalypse tries to tell the story of the oldest mutant who he himself believes is the Big Daddy. He proclaims himself as God and adds to the prosthetic make up weird mutant list of X-Men. The movie comes from a long list of great films in the series, the X-Men trilogy and may be even Deadpool if we count the X-Men (or X-Man and Teen girl because the studio could not spend much. Look at where that has got Fox!!) involved. Apocalypse tries to juggle too many mutants at hand and does a sore job at it. This time around the problem isn’t in the differences of ideology between Charles Xavier the Psychic and Magneto (Because Civil War and BvS came too close on heels!!) but about the World Ending forever.
Everything starts slow and fine in Apocalypse getting even Moira involved. Moira’s involvement and her easing into the team strangely reminded me of Fast and Furious series. But the issue with Apocalypse is that many people look confused, sometimes even more than Moira, including Magneto, Storm, Jean some by design, some by fault. (Even Apocalypse perhaps, can’t tell from the makeup) People lacked motivation to choose sides in the movie, or why there had to be sides in the first place.
Jean Gray played by Sophie Turner of Game of Thrones series remarks after a Star Wars movie that the Third film in the trilogy turns out worst. If this was a dig at X-Men: Last Stand for which the director Bryan Singer could not stay around for, let me tell you.. Ill advised and ill timed move. With a metacritic score of 51, X-Men Apocalypse might be moving to being the worst rated movie in X-Men History. May be not as much as X-Men Origins-Wolverine, but that owes to closing Deadpool’s mouth. You deserved it.
If the audience likes to watch a superpower destroy the many important monuments of Earth, they would rather watch Avengers again. X-Men Apocalypse would have been a great film had it been before Avengers, but now Marvel has taken the cake and all Fox can do is sulk about it. For Fox, I think it is time to move forward, the fact that Deadpool was movie is a hit even after the budget cuts and strict No for a long time is only the sign of what’s coming. The Wolverine played by Hugh Jackmann plays a cameo only because X-Men would not be complete without him. His cameo does not place him near the plot and has no apparent relevance. Had it been added to the After Credits it would have been exciting at least. Now we just put him in middle of Apocalypse and make him do nothing about it. That’s so not Wolverine.
Do why put Wolverine in the story to movie in the first place? Intertextuality. To gain from that feeling of safety and belonging when we see a beloved character onscreen.
Curious? NerdWriter has a video on it. Watch :
The films most emotional sequence comes in terms of Jean Gray asking Mystique if she is afraid. I still don’t understand why Jean gets to ask the question, because she already reveals that she ‘knows’ what everyone around her are feeling. It just gets confusing from there, as everyone takes teams in motivation and fear. This continues till the climax of the movie, everyone waiting for the set piece and not getting one. I don’t even try to place the Apocalypse anywhere in the X-Men timeline because all over the movie’s references you can feel how the Fox Studio is trying to piece together a timeline just as of MCU. That doesn’t work anymore. Learn from Sony!
It’s not only the third film in the series (in the new movie continuity), but also the sixth (overall), and also the ninth (if you count solo movies) which creates certain expectations — expectations that no movie could possibly meet.
I get it, I totally do. When the film franchise gets as big as X-Men, when we have already destroyed the world before, there comes need for higher levels of destruction and conflict. But to change the reason of conflict to centuries old mutant whose powers cannot be determined is not a great idea. It is here that film loses the connection. When Apocalypse has no general definition of power, or restriction on things he could do, we lose interest in the character itself. (For the motivation, he does not seem to enjoy his ancient looks in comparison with human race. They did not take me shopping! So I kill all!! ) If this guy is so Super why does he want the four horsemen, we wonder. (duh! So Magneto can be on the other side of the game) The destruction (the mass destruction) that Bryan Singer promised is finally here but it ends up being non-personal. It seems like Bryan understands the problems with Man of Steel and reduced all possible cases of human deaths.Well, the problem is well analysed, the solution just failed.
X-Men Apocalypse: What it could have been
First and foremost, it could have released in its original order of timeline. After Avengers, Man of Steel and many other alien wrecking CGI world movies, Apocalypse is more of an everyday sight now. A bit earlier, much better.
The X-Men Franchise is credited with the awakening of modern age of Superhero Movies. From the time of inception, X-Men have been about the psychological conflict introduced between Magneto and Charles Xavier rather than the mutants themselves. This was adopted by other franchises (Does the theme resemble Batman V Superman or Captain America: Civil War?) and turned into huge financial successes. But this time around in Apocalypse, much of these conflict situations seem forced and repetitive. I mean those conversations may not have been made for an Apocalyptic World.
Given that the movie is about a new beginning for the New mutants, I think it could have focused more on their struggles and triumphs. The great fan service were made for Jean Gray, (of course I mean the Phoenix) it would have been appropriate for the movie to focus more on her. If it focused more on the conflict in Jean’s mind on utility of her powers, the ending would not have seemed so lifeless. Also Magneto’s turn to the good side could have been well explained with the Quicksilver revelation. If Brian Singer is planning something better with it, I’m okay. But it could have made the scene much more effective. Jean’s powers and Magneto’s turn at the same time, could have created an excitement at the end which was sorely missed.
Apocalypse as a villain needed a bit more of character development. His exact powers or what he is exactly capable of is not made clear at any part of the movie. Even at the ending when he simply shields himself. Brian Singer’s idea of representing the Apocalypse as a cult with Horsemen representing Military, Politics, Youth and Sex did not reflect well on screen. Why Apocalypse needs the horsemen is also in question.
The under utilization of characters like Jubilee, Storm or Psylock did not help the movie either.
Remarks:
- The QuickSilver scenes are a merry in the movie, It gets better from the Future Past. But he should have had something more creative to do in those scenes rather than running around to old music.
- Wolverine in his Weapon X beginning was exciting to watch. Although he did not have anything to do.
- Jean’s Phoenix where she doesn’t just die in shock
- Please don’t mess up the Deadpool movie!!
Watch Trailer:
Meanwhile, watch this one from Cracked where they hypotheses Prof Charles Xavier to be the Main Villain of X-Men.
