X-Men, Apocalypse:
Ten years after the events of X-Men: Days of Future Past, Charles Xavier is running a successful mutant academy and mutants are becoming more integrated into society. In this new alternate timeline, Mystique is on the run, now a hero and martyr for mutant rights after her selfless acts at the conclusion of the past film. Magneto is living a quiet life under the radar in Poland as a factory worker, as he is now a wanted man for trying to kill President Nixon and destroy Washington, D.C. During this time of peace, a cult in Cairo, Egypt awakens the ancient mutant Apocalypse, the world's first, who is all-powerful. Quickly learning of man's history and capacity for destructions, as well as the creation of their own "superpowers" (nuclear weapons, technological advancements), Apocalypse decides to recruit four followers (his "Horsemen") and imbue them with advanced abilities, and plans to cleanse the Earth of those who he views as weak and unfit to live in the same world as him. With the help of CIA agent Moira MacTaggert (Xavier's old flame), the retired X-Men must find a way to stop Apocalypse from tearing the world apart.
One thing I appreciated right off the bat with this film was the alternate timeline plot that Days of Future Past allowed. Now that the original series of films has been annulled, the series can proceed down numerous new paths without worrying about getting tangled up in continuity (though there's still some here, such as the age of the character Angel not fitting with either timeline).
One thing I found laughable was the lack of aging on characters. Now, obviously the actors haven't aged, but the makeup team didn't even attempt to make them look older. They already clarified Mystique ages slowly so that doesn't bother me much. More like Beast, Moira, Xavier, Havok, Magneto, etc. all looking roughly the same age they did in First Class, which took place 20 years prior to this one. Apparently if you just make Magneto more unshaven and slap mullets on Havok and Xavier that equals aging. Even Quicksilver hasn't aged at all. Being a teenager/college-aged in the previous film made him living in his mom's basement plausible, but ten years later?!! With his abilities he never thought to go out and make a name for himself or do something? His mom (also the same as she was before) never bothered him about this? He even acknowledges, jokingly, what a loser he is and how nothing has changed in his life. Why? Because people like young, fun, carefree Quicksilver. (They also never clarify how or why exactly Magneto ended up with his mom, who just seems way below Magneto's league. Of course, their fling happened years prior, as Magneot is Quicksilver's father, so maybe they just make her look older and drained.)
These ages lead to problems with the age of Havok compared to his brother Scott. Scott/Cyclops is in his late teens in this film, whereas Havok looks a few years older, but really should be middle-aged by this point, making their parents elderly, but they look to be in their 50's. Just issues like that got in the way for me.
I think Jennifer Lawrence is a fine actress, but she just doesn't do it for me as Mystique. I think she's got the look right, and certain scenes work, but her youth makes some of the speeches she gives come off as naive, cringey, and undeserved. And her new status as a freedom fighter seems completely out-of-character (Mystique in the comics and original timeline is a cold-blooded killer and her original movie counterpart rarely speaks even), and kind of political. I don't think anyone is deluding themselves that Mystique has only gotten a larger role due to Lawrence's current mega-star status. Luckily, she's downplayed in this movie compared to last time (where she was the instigator of the entire plot and was placed the same size as Wolverine on the poster), but still has more screen time than the character would've had otherwise.
The rest of the cast are a lot of fun, and just seem to be having a great time doing these movies. Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy both have their more dramatic moments, particularly Fassbender, who is able to bring a lot of emotional weight and grounds the film more in reality. Where Ian McKellen made Magneto both charming and very intimidating and shifty, Fassbender humanizes him and makes him more tragic, as if every time he tries to leave his violent past behind him and live a normal life, violence seems to find him.
Sophie Turner is good as Jean Grey, though at times her character feels like her role on Game of Thrones. Luckily, her character her is nowhere near as aggravatingly naive and arrogant as her part on the HBO series has become, and has more of a genuinely powerful feel to her. Tye Sheridan also does a surprisingly great job as young Cyclops, who gets more development here than he did in any of the original films (poor James Marsden). Kodi Smit-McPhee was great as the partial comic relief Nightcrawler, who has been sorely absent from the series since Alan Cumming's fantastic portrayal in X2. However, of course the shining star of the cast is Evan Peters as Quicksilver. Taking one of the X-Men I was most aloof about in other media and making him into my favorite film character is a terrific feat, and he has yet another spectacular and entertaining slow-motion sequence in this film, topping the excellent "Time in a Bottle" scene from the previous film. I wasn't expecting them to do it again, but I hope it becomes a sort of tradition as the series progresses. Peters is just having a blast, and it rubs off of me as a viewer, and he provides much-needed comic relief in a world where everyone is always just talking about mutant politics and how hard it is to be themselves. Even though his comic relief is sometimes misplaced (the dramatic low point during the second act is tainted by his goofy antics), but is so well-executed and his character so lovable I excuse it. Lucas Till returns as Havok, getting a lot more screen time than the last movie. Here, rather than being Cyclops' younger brother, he takes the part of the older, and in the limited screen time they have, they have a lot of chemistry as a believable brother pair. Rose Byrne was bland here as Moira MacTaggert, who only serves as exposition and as love interest to Xavier here. She was a lot better in First Class, where she seemed to have more to do, and Byrne is usually a good actress, so I was disappointed. Lana Condor appears in a borderline cameo role as everyone's least favorite mutant, Jubilee. Hopefully in future films she has more screen time and can change the negative perception the character has from the animated series and comics.
As for the villainous characters, Alexandra Shipp and Ben Hardy are fine supporting characters as the troubled characters Storm and Angel, and both of these characters, in their limited development, are leagues more interesting than their counterparts in the originals. Shipp's accent is also far more convincing than Halle Berry's embarrassing attempt at one in the original X-Men. Olivia Munn reportedly gave up the role as the girlfriend in Deadpool to play Psylocke, as she felt it was a stronger female role. Psylocke is a waste of space here, just thrown in to pander to fans who have waited for her appearance in a film for decades. She has few lines of dialogue, and spends most of her time strutting and hopping around in a latex suit (fun fact: fashioned at an LA sex shop), and has one fight scene with Beast and then skulks off camera as a sequel tease. She's not a character at all, she's a plot device and piece of eye candy. It's pretty pitiful, so let's hope to a sequel to shed more light on her and flesh her out a bit more.
Now, the big question is of the titular big bad: Apocalypse. Oscar Isaac is a fantastic performer, so he is able to create a palpable sense of menace and dread when he's on screen. His determination to kill and lack of conscience or reason makes him so terrifying, and he is definitely one of the more memorable villains in the series, alongside Ian McKellen's Magneto and Brian Cox's William Stryker. However, as many have stated before me, his motivation (at least for the most part), seems very unclear. It kind of leaves it to the audience to pick up the pieces and determine for themselves his motive. He wants to cleanse the Earth. Why? Does he see humans as weaker than he is? Does he want only strong mutants and humans to live beside? Is he upset that humans didn't progress how he wanted and are trying to replicate his power? World peace by cleansing out the bad people? All of these options seem valid. His appearance is also hilariously reminiscent of Ivan Ooze from the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers movie. So he's a weakly developed villain, but Isaac's strength as an actor makes up for it, so he's kind of a mixed bag.
The action set-pieces in this film are, like other installments, not as prevalent as in other films, but the first few are pretty spectacular. Unfortunately, the action peaks early on with the Quicksilver scene being the midpoint climax, and there is a scene shortly after it I won't spoil with a cameo in it, but it's also really awesome and surprisingly bloody for a PG-13 film. However, the final battle, while it had moments (thanks to Quicksilver namely), didn't do it for me overall. I felt it was kind of schlocky and too CG-heavy. I felt the films were at their best when they had more reserved, personal climaxes, where the action was more grounded in reality, and more multi-layered and not one huge video game-esque melee battle. I also felt the earlier films exhausted the best set-pieces for the most part, as I feel they had sequences that really played around with the mutant powers and really showed what these characters could do, while also being a thrill to watch. Here, it's just a bunch of people in bright costumes throwing CG beams and heavy rubble at each other, and feels just not right. I couldn't tell if too little or too much was going on, and you know it's bad when you can't even determine what's wrong with something because it's so fucked.
X-Men: Apocalypse is solid summer movie material. Is it one of the best in the series? No. But there have been worse. Much worse. That's why the intense backlash this film has gotten shocked me quite a bit. It may be a slightly mixed film, but by no stretch is it bad. It's well-plotted and written for the majority, and has a lot of fun, technically astounding scenes, and characters you can actually really get attached to and like, which is more than can be said for much of its competition lately. 7/10 stars.
A Spoiler-filled but very entertaining review/discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjNSCLQGzLA (RedLetterMedia)
(Image: Wikipedia)Notes (SPOILERS ahead):
-The end credits scene foreshadows the new R-rated Wolverine film, which I am excited for, as it will provide the character with a much-needed but somewhat bittersweet final chapter, as it will be Hugh Jackman's final appearance as the character he began playing nearly two decades ago.
-The spoiler-heavy action scene I mentioned earlier is actually where Wolverine escapes Stryker's compound as Weapon X, mad with rage and amnesia. Bryan Singer makes a cameo as a guard Wolverine slays on his way out. Funny enough, I was actually thinking to myself right as the scene began how refreshing it was to have an X-Men film where Wolverine is absent. *sigh* Regardless, a very cool and violent scene reminiscent of the mansion raid scene in X2.
-The way Apocalypse is killed in this film made sense, but ultimately was kind of bland for me. All the very powerful mutants just blasting him with CG lasers and rubble until he disintegrates with Jean's Phoenix power. Also, I find it amusing that now, in regards to comic book movies, with all the resurrections and retconning that happens, particularly in this franchise, whenever a character is killed, I always see in the synopses on Wikipedia "the character is seemingly killed/destroyed." Same goes for here. Apocalypse was disintegrated into fucking air. I don't think he's coming back.
-There's a totally random and out-of-place scene where some mutant teens go see Return of the Jedi at the mall cinema, and have this conversation about which of the trilogy is the best. They all debate between Empire and Star Wars, before Jean Grey says "At least we can all agree the third is the worst." I was confused with the random bashing of Jedi and why the scene was included, until I quickly realized Singer was not-so-subtly taking a jab at X-Men: The Last Stand (originally the conclusion to the trilogy, and the first film he did not direct). I appreciated it, but also felt that anyone not familiar with X-Men movies would be thoroughly confused as to what the reference was all about. This scene does kind of make me question why mutants are so respected now in this new timeline, because Nightcrawler is able to walk around the mall publicly and no one bats an eye at a blue boy with fangs, a tail, and giant three-digited feet and hands? In a world where bigotry still exists against other humans, I highly doubt in one decade mutants would become this integrated, even though they establish the new timeline's people are a lot more progressive than in the old one.
-Blob, played by "Giant" Gustav Claude Ouimet, cameos early on, continuing the tradition of these films of just shoving in recognizable faces from the comics into cameo roles.
-The scene where Magneto's family is killed by clumsy police officers while trying to arrest him is heart-wrenching and well-executed. While I predicted what was about to happen, Fassbender's performance is so convincing for a comic book film that it saved it from being just a cliche tug at the heart-strings. The way in which he executed the officers is also really clever but also unnerving.
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