X-Men Apocalypse – A Ranty Spoiler Review
It’s been sixteen years since the first X-Men movie hit our screens and ushered in a new era of comic book movies. And while many superhero franchises such as the MCU movies have flourished, the X-Men series has struggled somewhat to match both their critical and financial success. Much of the issues with the X-Men series were rectified with 2014’s ‘Days Of Future Past’, a brilliant time-travel movie where director Bryan Singer managed to successfully tie the original movies and the new series together. Which is why I find it so incredibly frustrating to see most of this undone in ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’.
Here’s the deal. Apocalypse as a stand alone movie is alright. It has big action set pieces, it has a wealth of interesting characters with incredibly rich backstories and a big bad villain intent on destroying the world. All the ingredients you need for a big blockbuster movie. But this isn’t the first film in the franchise, it’s the closer of a trilogy and the ninth movie in the franchise overall. So what should be interesting storytelling and character building is in fact a retread of stories all too familiar.
With a wealth of new characters to the franchise including Psylocke (Olivia Munn), Jubilee (Lana Condor) and Angel (Ben Hardy), the focus should be on developing their characters rather than running yet another Magneto (Michael Fassbender) is good then bad then good again arc. The Magneto arc in Apocalypse is practically the same as the last two movies – some flashbacks to Nazi Germany, Magneto becoming the bad guy before finding redemption at the end. It’s incredibly tired and at this point, an absolute chore to watch. The same applies for Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) who spends much of the movie in human form before deciding to accept who she is and be blue again. The exact same story arc that she had in First Class. This time could have been much better spent developing new characters and giving them purpose. What was Psylocke’s reason for joining Apocalypse? What drove her to side with him? Why was Apocalypse so mad at the world he’d been in for five minutes that he felt he had to destroy it? It’s disappointing to see such an interesting as Apocalypse be completely one dimensional and his four horsemen relegated to just standing about pouting for the majority of the movie.
Some good work is done in building the X-Men team so that it resembles the team that we first met in the original movie. Tye Sheridan as ‘Cyclops’ was the standout for me, he brings a lot of personality to a character which has been quite uptight and boring in the past. Sophie Turner’s performance as Jean Grey wasn’t quite as convincing, a lot of her lines were lifeless and flat. Famke brought a softness to the character that I didn’t see here. With a Phoenix storyline due to be done again at some point, I’m not convinced that Turner will be able to convincingly pull out the right performance.
And then there are the plot holes. So many plot holes. With the events of ‘Days Of Future Past’ changing the future so that the events of the original trilogy never happened, how exactly does this explain how Angel is in his twenties in 1983 and in his twenties in 2006 (X-Men: The Last Stand)? How can Jubilee be a teenager in this movie and in X-Men 2? And then there’s the Wolverine subplot with the X-Men being taken to Alkali Lake (again) by William Stryker (again) where Wolverine has recently undergone the Weapon X program (which we’ve seen in five movies now) and every time it’s different. In the original movie, Wolverine had never met any of the X-Men and now he’s having memories given back to him by Jean Grey? Come on.
At this point in the movie, Apocalypse and his horsemen have spent most of the movie sulking about and finally decide to destroy the world. While this showdown between the X-Men and the four horsemen is good, it could have been much better. After seeing the incredible airport scene in Captain America: Civil War, it shows you the potential these action scenes have and much of the action was shown in the trailers. Storm uses some lightning, Psylock cuts a car in half, Jean cowers in the corner the entire time. It was all just a bit flat. The CG wasn’t particularly memorable either with parts of it very reminiscent of the dreadful Dark Phoenix CG from X-Men: The Last Stand.
It kills me to be so critical of an X-Men movie. Growing up, I was obsessed with the 90’s cartoon and the X-Men franchise will always be my favourite but there is really no excuse at this point. With Marvel knocking it out of the park time and time again with their movies, X-Men Apocalypse feels stuck in the past, unsure of where to go and keep the franchise fresh. Old stories are played out time and time again, one dimensional villains that are quickly discarded. It all feels very tired and I worry for the future of the X-Men if this is allowed to continue.
(Originally posted on liams-life.co.uk)
I also have an unhealthy obsession with US TV shows such as Buffy, How To Get Away With Murder and RuPaul's Drag Race.
