X-Men Apocalypse, 2016.
Directed by Bryan Singer.
Starring James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Oscar Issac, Nicholas Hoult, Rose Byrne, Evan Peters, Sophie Turner, Tye Sheridan, Lucas Till and Kodi Smit-McPhee.
SYNOPSIS:
With the emergence of the world’s first mutant, Apocalypse, the X-Men must unite to defeat his extinction level plan.
Going to see a film when you have low expectations can be a great experience. Going to see Ant Man and World War Z I expected to witness some truly bad cinema but was pleasantly surprised (Ant Man ranks high in my list of the MCU’s best) – and then there is X-Men Apocalypse. The trailers didn’t blow me away but I thought I’d give it the benefit of the doubt as Singer’s X-Men films have always been entertaining with great stories – how wrong I was. Following on from the previous film, Apocalypse is set in 1983 and deals with the emergence of the world’s first mutant Apocalypse (Issac).
Let’s start with the good. The opening scene of Apocalypse is thrilling and well directed and sets up the God elements of Apocalypse’s character in an interesting and disturbing way. It’s inventive and something different for the X-Men universe which has been so deeply rooted in science. Another stand out scene is a silent and delicately handled moment in a forest with Magneto’s family. No spoilers, but it is a trigger point for him to go and join the fight. This quiet scene amongst the various action set pieces is handled brilliantly and reminds me of Singer’s earlier work. Then of course there is Quicksilver’s scene. Not quite as brilliant as in Days of Future Past, this time around Evan Peter’s Quicksilver turns up just in time to save a bunch of people from an explosion and does so along to the Eurythmics “Sweet Dreams”. It’s an entertaining scene packed full of humour and great special effects. Peters is the best thing in this movie by a long stretch.
Now the bad. Whilst exiting the cinema after watching Return of the Jedi, Jean Grey (a woefully miscast Sophie Turner) comments “the third one is always the worst”. Whilst it seems this is a dig at The Last Stand, when watching Apocalypse this rings true. The plot is flimsy and appears to have been written to shoehorn every character in with zero development. Apocalypse himself is a one dimensional villain. His powers are vague (although he could put construction workers out of business as he seems adept at building pyramids), his superiority over other mutants is not that clear, and his motivations for destroying humanity seem like that of a petulant teenager. Isaac is a tremendous actor but he’s lost in this role with only clunky dialogue to work with and a ton of CGI. There are issues as well with his “four horsemen”. We’re introduced to Storm, Psylocke, and Angel (from the trailers you can tell who the fourth member is). There is zero explanation as to who these mutants are, why they decide to blindly follow Apocalypse, they are simply there for a few action set pieces and because their powers are quite cool.
X-Men 2 is for me one of the greatest superhero films ever. It has a compelling villain, great banter between the Charles and Erik, amazing action, a lot of heart and one of the best opening sequences ever – it’s everything this addition to the franchise isn’t. Throughout Apocalypse you see flashes of superior X-Men movies that make you wish you were watching them. We see flashes of Days of Future Past and First Class and I couldn’t help but think how I would prefer to be watching them right now. Apocalypse essentially ruins Singer’s original films in a way because of the amount of plot holes it creates. Whilst we are on another timeline because of the events of Days of Future Past, it’s still a massive gripe. Here are a few:
- In a scene at Alkali Lake (shoehorned to fit in Wolverine). Wolverine and Jean meet, yet this makes their original meeting in X-Men make no sense.
- Storm and Jean meet Nightcrawler at a young age and therefore the scene in the church in X-Men 2 wouldn’t have happened.
- Wolverine has metal claws in this film even though Mystique took him at the end of Days of Future Past so he would not get into the clutches of Stryker.
There is zero character development throughout as well. Jennifer Lawrence plays Mystique as a “blue Katniss” and she spends so much time out of her natural blue form you have to wonder how much money Lawrence’s face must bring in for the franchise. She is so far away from Rebecca Romijn’s original Mystique that she feels slightly one dimensional. Moira McTaggert (Byrne) is also re-introduced in this film and oddly she and Xavier (McAvoy) have zero chemistry together compared to First Class. Their scenes together are simply boring and she serves simply as a plot device. We don’t get to find out much about our supporting characters either which is a shame. Tye Sheridan and Kodi Smit-McPhee as Cyclops and Nightcrawler are well cast but they don’t get much to do throughout. Nightcrawler is a character many have been wanting to see again for years, unfortunately he’s given little to do other than be comic relief. Sophie Turner as Jean Grey just didn’t work for me. Her accent was all over the place and her portrayal seemed cold and distant. With the Phoenix storyline brought in with this film it’s a shame that they didn’t cast a more capable young actress to take on the role.
It feels almost wrong to not enjoy an X-Men film by Bryan Singer. He rebooted the superhero genre, he introduced the world to Hugh Jackman, and he is a true visionary. With Apocalypse it seems he’s been weighted down with so many plot threads and timelines to keep up with that it is an incoherent mess that only has a few entertaining moments.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Helen Murdoch is a freelance writer – Follow me on Twitter
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Originally published May 22, 2016. Updated April 15, 2018.
