The Flickering Myth writing team share their opinion on the first trailer for X-Men: Apocalypse…
Yesterday 20th Century Fox gave us our first official look at May’s big X-Men sequel with the release of the trailer for Bryan Singer’s latest mutant superhero epic X-Men: Apocalypse. What did our writing team make of the trailer? Well, it certainly split opinion…
Chris Cooper: X-Meh. I did like that we saw Apocalypse change size and bald Xavier though. I’ve no doubt it will be a decent film. But X-Men: Days of Future Past didn’t stay with me so I’m not that excited.
Anthony Stokes: Can we bring Matthew Vaughn back?
David Opie: I don’t like how Mystique is becoming more heroic just because Jennifer Lawrence is such a huge star now, but if Bryan Singer can successfully juggle this ensemble, Apocalypse could be the best X-Men movie yet. If nothing else, I’m excited to see Storm and Jean Grey finally receive the respect they’re due.
Villordsutch: After the TMNT overload of everything we’ve hit the opposite end of the spectrum here and felt we were being lulled to sleep with this trailer. I’m getting nervous here as I keeping thinking Superman Returns.
Matt Spencer-Skeen: Trailer was somewhat underwhelming but there’s still a while yet for others to show us more and create more excitement. I’m willing to reserve judgement until later considering Singer and Kinberg’s track record with the X-Men movies so far.
Helen Murdoch: A bit underwhelming but I have high hopes for Oscar Isaac. Liking the voice and the look. Not sold on the rest.
Tai Freligh: I think X-Meh is a great summary. This trailer was underwhelming. They tried to hide what Apocalypse looked like to make him scarier, but we had already seen him in the post credits scene from the last movie, so the reveal of his face was blah. I’m just not excited about X-Men movies lately and this trailer did nothing to change my mind.
Ricky Church: I think the trailer is good, but not as exciting as I had hoped it would be. The best thing I liked about the trailer was seeing Jean, Cyclops and Storm, but we got so little of them. One thing I still don’t quite understand is Fox’s aversion to using colourful suits. The X-Men are all wearing similar looking armour rather than their traditional suits, which is a bit of a step backwards from the wardrobe choices in DOFP. Marvel has shown audiences are willing to accept colourful/gimmicky costumes, yet between Apocalypse and Fant4stic, the costumes look so dull. Apocalypse himself looks better on screen than he does in the photos, but I also don’t understand why they showed him cloaked so much since he’s been featured so prominently in promo photos. I agree the trailer is a little underwhelming, but I’m still looking forward to it.
Gav Logan: I thought it was stunning. Perfect mix of dramatic build up and action. Have to agree that Jennifer Lawrence superstardom is slightly overshadowing the Mystique character but other than that I’m sold.
Jackson Ball: Thoroughly underwhelmed unfortunately. Can see this film getting lost in the blockbuster shuffle next year. Having said that, I thought the exact same thing about DOFP, so who knows!?
Anghus Houvouras: I’m with Gav. Un-Freakin-Belivably good trailer. We need to find whoever cut the Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice trailer, tie them to a chair, and have them watch this trailer 100 times a la Clockwork Orange. The X-Men franchise has often felt like a missed opportunity because they haven’t indulged the vastness of the comic stories. X-Men: Apocalypse looks like a big bucket of crazy. The fact that we’re going to get a Marvel Mutant movie set in the 1980’s make me giddy. Did you see Charles Xavier’s Miami Vice inspired get up? The frizzy perm on Mystique? Singer really seems to have found his creative rhythm with his franchise. For me, this is the geek movie to see in 2016. Crazy good.
You know what this trailer has that so many other comic movies have lacked: a strong villain. Think about all the trailers and comic book movies we’ve seen lately. It’s all superheroes fighting superheroes. The trailers for Captain America: Civil War haven’t shown us a villain. And Batman v Superman was 80% about heroes fighting. This trailer was about Apocalypse. It exists to show how menacing a threat he is to the world. It’s odd how refreshing it feels to see a trailer for a superhero movie where the focus is the villain.
Gary Collinson: I think I’m in the underwhelmed camp.. Not a bad trailer by any means, but it hasn’t left me desperate to see more. I also echo the previous comments about Mystique and the lack of colourful costumes. That being said, Apocalypse looks much better than he did in the first images, the new X-Men look great (especially Storm), and Xavier is finally bald!
Tom Jolliffe: I’m underwhelmed for several reasons. One is that I’m just tired of these comic book films now. Many of them seem to be much of a muchness. Another reason is that the trailer itself is just very formulaic. When it comes to blockbusters there seems to be 2-3 types of trailer that get churned out. This is a production line trailer. You could replace the title with any other big budget film. That said I would fully expect this to be a better film than Batman v Superman.
Kris Wall: I was looking forward to this trailer so much yet I came away feeling slightly disappointed by it. Oscar Isaac certainly looks and sounds awesome and I’m sure he’ll be the highlight of the movie, but the trailer itself didn’t…….X-cite me shall we say, not in the same way the first trailer for Days of Future Past did. That final shot of bald McAvoy, unnecessary too. Still, it’s the first trailer and there’s a lot of time between now and release. I remain hopeful.
Samuel Brace: Interesting that we didn’t get a proper look at Apocalypse after all the backlash on his appearance in the stills released. Film looks decent though.
Anghus Houvouras: Better to show too little of Apocalypse than too much, like Doomsday in the BvS trailer.
Anthony Stokes: I don’t know, this is the weakest trailer I’ve seen from one of these tentpoles Batman v Superman and Civil War included. It just feels underwhelming and even kind of a rehash.
Luke Owen: Thought it was pretty good, all told. A nice tease for what’s to come. Loved Days of Future Past, and this looks just as good. Singer knows what he’s doing with these characters, and this time he’s not relaying on the nostalgia factor. Not quite Civil War great, but better than the most recent Batman v Superman trailer. Oscar Isaac is going to rule the world pretty soon.
James Garcia: Days of Future Past is one of my favorite comic book films, so my expectations are set pretty high for Apocalypse. This new trailer instilled a lot more confidence in the film, and in Oscar Isaac as the titular villain. He no longer looks like Ivan Ooze, and is more of an imposing threat. Like Anghus said, I’m glad they tried not to show too much of him. With that said, I cannot WAIT to see what Isaac does with the role, because he looks and sounds awesome as hell.
I too think that Lawrence’s star power has outgrown her role as Mystique. Not to say that I don’t want big actors in these roles, but the fact that we don’t see her at all in her true, blue form says a lot about how much the studio wants us to realize it’s her. Hopefully that’s not a big deal in the final movie. All in all, I think the trailer did a sufficient job of teasing the film, the stakes, and showing glimpses of the new characters. I’m excited to finally see young versions of Jean, Cyclops, and Storm, and hope that Singer finds a way to place all of them in great positions for the franchise moving forward.
X-Men: Apocalypse is set for release on May 19th, 2016 in the UK and May 27th, 2016 in the States. The cast includes X-Men veterans James McAvoy (Professor X), Michael Fassbender (Magneto), Jennifer Lawrence (Mystique), Nicholas Hoult (Beast), Evan Peters (Quicksilver), Rose Byrne (Moira MacTaggert) and Lucas Till (Havok) along with newcomers Oscar Isaac (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) as Apocalypse, Sophie Turner (Game of Thrones) as Jean Grey, Tye Sheridan (Mud) as Cyclops, Alexandra Shipp (House of Anubis) as Storm, Kodi Smit-McPhee (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes) as Nightcrawler, Ben Hardy (EastEnders) as Angel, Olivia Munn (Magic Mike) as Psylocke and newcomer Lana Condor as Jubilee.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng&v=WWU57JuvPl0
