Review – X-Men: Apocalypse

Synopsis:

Following the critically acclaimed global smash hit X-Men: Days of Future Past, director Bryan Singer returns with X-MEN: APOCALYPSE. Since the dawn of civilization, he was worshipped as a god. Apocalypse, the first and most powerful mutant from Marvel’s X-Men universe, amassed the powers of many other mutants, becoming immortal and invincible. Upon awakening after thousands of years, he is disillusioned with the world as he finds it and recruits a team of powerful mutants, including a disheartened Magneto (Michael Fassbender), to cleanse mankind and create a new world order, over which he will reign. As the fate of the Earth hangs in the balance, Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) with the help of Professor X (James McAvoy) must lead a team of young X-Men to stop their greatest nemesis and save mankind from complete destruction.

What We Thought:

X-Men: Apocalypse is a huge disappointment. I walked out really not liking it.

Overall I like the X-Men movies. I liked First Class a lot. I liked the first two movies (of the original trilogy) a lot. I didn’t hate Days of Future Past like others did. X-Men: The Last Stand, ok, yeah I don’t really like that one, but overall I enjoy them and look forward to them. I did not enjoy this one.

My problem with this is, it’s all CGI and very little action. I honestly don’t remember more than 2 or 3 fight sequences and one was a token one that I’ll talk about in a bit. The final “battle” is nothing, but CGI in-your-face, Michael Bay-ish nonsense. It’s just Magneto moving things, Storm moving things with weather, the world falling apart thanks to CGI effects and that’s it. It’s loud and over the top for the sake of being loud and over the top.

The other major problem is continuity. First Class takes part in the 1960’s. That’s where we are introduced to James McAvoy as Professor X, Michael Fassbender as Magneto, Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique, etc. This takes place in 1983 so around 15 to 20 years after that movie. Well they don’t age any of the characters at all. Sure Mystique can control her looks, but Charles, Erik, Alex Summers, they should all look 30s to early 40s at this point. They don’t. At all. Plus Alex Summers introduces his younger brother Scott (Cyclops) to the gang and he’s a teenager. How is his younger brother (by a few years) a teenager if Alex was a teenager in the 60s?

Then there’s the expected scenes in the film. Quicksilver was the breakout character of Days of Future Past. His speed made it look like everything was in slow motion and audiences were wowed by the scenes he was in. I dug it too. Well, in this, they give him two big moments to do his thing. If audiences liked it before, they’ll love it again, but this time twice as often! Ok the first one is kind of cool, but the second time towards the end seemed tacked on and pandering.

Speaking of tacked on and pandering, here comes that token scene I mentioned earlier. I won’t say what character it is, but you can see it coming a mile away. He’s in it for a few minutes, grunts a bit and kills a bunch of people and then bam, never seen again. It’s an X-Men movie ____ has to be in it! I love the character and like the actor who plays him and even I thought it felt forced and unnecessary.

X-Men: Apocalypse just didn’t do it for me. They wasted the Apocalypse character horrifically. Oscar Isaac is a fantastic actor and even he couldn’t save the character. In fact, someone with the talent of Isaac isn’t needed for that type of role. That’s the thing that blows my mind, how a movie with Fassbender, McAvoy, Isaac, Jen Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Rose Byrne and other super talented people can be this bad. I’d watch it again before I’d watch Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, but in a year that already gave us the amazing Deadpool and really good Captain America: Civil War, Marvel’s latest is…

MAJORLY DISAPPOINTING!

Cast & Crew:

• Michael Fassbender
• James McAvoy
• Jennifer Lawrence
• Oscar Isaac

Recommended If You Like:

• X-Men Movies
• Comic Book Movies