Introducing other mutants in the 1960s, as well as tying
well-known historical events into the story, was a breath of fresh air.
While it was great to get the characters all together in the original 2000
film, it was nice to see how this all came about—how Charles and Eric became
friends, how they became enemies, how Professor X first united other mutants
into his School for Gifted Youngsters, how he lost the use of his
legs…everything that wasn’t answered in the first set of films were answered in
X-Men: First Class. Although Hugh Jackman was only in the movie
for a cameo, the movie was unique in that it was successful without having
Wolverine play an integral part in the story. At this point in the
franchise, the four previous movies all featured Jackman, front and center, as
the main protagonist or one of them. So it’s safe to say that everything
was turned on its head with the reimagining of the X-Men films.
Speaking of reimagining, X-Men: Days of Future Past really
set that in motion, didn’t it? It was an intelligent and logical thing to
do, having the future changed in that story in order to reboot the
franchise. At the same time, the movie gave us one of the best stories in
the series, continuing on the backstory of these characters to see how they had
gotten to where they are.
So with X-Men: First Class being set in the 60s and X-Men:
Days of Future Past being set in the 70s, of course X-Men: Apocalypse
is set in the 80s (Why go off the rails with a successful theme like
that?).
Going back to the first statement of this post, how the franchise
appeared to be losing steam…there was the teeniest bit of wishful thinking—by
me—of that happening. A lot of other comic book fans (especially fans of
Marvel Comics) would love to see the franchise go back to Marvel Studios and
have them incorporate the characters into their cinematic universe, which is
why I had that minuscule crumb of hope. Sony has already agreed to share
Spider-Man, Fox had lost the rights to Daredevil, Punisher might land in there
somewhere, The Fantastic Four may slip away from Fox…so maybe we’ll see the
X-Men meet up with The Avengers sometime in the future…who knows? The
cash-cow of that franchise, Hugh Jackman, has just announced that the next film
he’s working on will be the last time he plays the character of Wolverine
(although it’s thought that he may return to team up with Ryan Reynolds in a Deadpool
sequel), so what will Fox do after that? They can’t go on making X-Men
movies (completely successful anyway) without him. I’ll say that they’re
in a pickle.
So, until that day comes, we’ll just have to enjoy Fox’s X-Men
cinematic universe, where all the other Marvel characters don’t exist—no
Spider-Man, no Hulk, no Iron Man, No Captain America—just these mutant
superheroes. But it’s not so bad. In the meantime, let me synopsize
X-Men: Apocalypse and you can judge for yourself…
The first and most powerful mutant, Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac),
awakens after a centuries-long slumber and takes on his Four Horsemen—Storm
(Alexandra Shipp), Angel (Ben Hardy), Psylocke (Olivia Munn), and Magneto
(Michael Fassbender)—to destroy the world in order for the mutants to take
control. Professor Xavier (James McAvoy), with the help of Mystique
(Jennifer Lawrence), must lead a group of young mutants to defend the Earth
against this new powerful enemy.
I must say, straightaway, that this movie was quite good and
enjoyable, continuing on from the teaser we’d all seen after the credits of X-Men:
Days of Future Past. Most of us have been trained now to sit through
these comic book movies, waiting for an extra scene that’ll give us a clue or
Easter Egg as to what’s to come in the sequel. Sometimes it’s a clear
message as we’d first seen in Iron Man, seeing Nick Fury show up to talk
about The Avengers Initiative; but sometimes you need to be a lifelong comic
book reader to understand, like when they showed the teaser at the end of Days
of Future Past. I have to admit, I was a bit lost until I scoured the
internet to find out what that scene (a weird-looking blue guy obviously using
some colossal power to build the pyramids in Egypt) meant and how it would play
out. X-Men: Apocalypse eloquently continues that
after-credits stinger seamlessly and answers the question right from the
get-go.
Even though Bryan Singer, along with Fox and their execs, are
utilizing these new actors and actresses as they take the franchise back and
through earlier timelines, this new film loses that feel of the two previous
films—First Class and Days of Future Past—going right back to the
feel of the very first two outings. Now that’s not necessarily a bad
thing, but it just seems like Singer wants to make sure this is his baby and
that he’s back on it for the long haul.
Let’s discuss the characters, with the new mutants first.
Apocalypse is the new baddie, as I’d mentioned in the
synopsis. He’s an all-powerful mutant who is unstoppable and thinks of
himself as a god, able to kill anyone and everyone he sees and can give more
power to any mutant he chooses. Now this is how writers can trap themselves,
because I’d noticed that, yes, he kills a lot of people—some in very horrible,
yet, cool ways—with simply a thought to do whatever. But why is it that
he doesn’t use such powers when he can? Like, say for instance, when he
comes across the mutants as they stand up to him…why doesn’t he tear them apart
with a simple thought? But I do like some of the powers he uses,
like when he changes the molecular composition of rock to liquid form and have
it swallow someone up, changing it back to rock. Sometimes he uses that
power to put someone in, head first, so they’re obviously going to die a
horrible death, suffocating inside a rock. Overall, I just felt he was a
bit inconsistent as the main heavy.
Psylocke is a character we haven’t seen before within the films of
the franchise and she looked to be pulled right out of the pages of the comic
books. Her throwback outfit kept my attention—in more ways than one—and
Olivia Munn’s portrayal was impressive. Not being too familiar with the
X-Men comic book run, I hadn’t really heard of the character, but the
simplistic representation of how she’s able to form some sort of lightsaberish
sword from her hand was pretty awesome. I’m looking forward to seeing
this character in further X-Men films.
The character of Jubilee (Lana Condor) is featured throughout this
movie, almost as a background character, but never establishing what her powers
are. In fact, I had to go online to look up what they actually are and
they’re actually pretty cool. I guess she’s able to generate bright
bursts of energy from her hands, mentally controlling them to strike out at
varying levels of power. Why Bryan Singer chose not to depict that in the
movie and elected, instead, to just present her as a background character
seemed a bit off. Hopefully we get to see the character’s full potential
in later films.
Now, for the characters that we’ve seen before as adults, but
showcased here as younger versions, were rather notable.
Sophie Turner plays the younger version of Jean Grey and I really
can’t fault her performance because she played the part very well.
However, the casting of the actress had me a bit troubled. As the scene
played out where we first meet her in this film, I had no idea who she
was. Watching this strawberry redhead with blue-green eyes walk into the
scene, I’d just thought she was some new mutant we haven’t seen before.
Knowing that Famke Janssen played the adult Jean Grey in the original three
films (as well as a cameo in Days of Future Past), I was familiar with
her features, namely the brown eyes. It just takes me out of the movie a
bit when the filmmakers are trying to convey to the audience that this young
girl is the same character. I don’t know…maybe I’m a bit picky in that
regard. But her character is developed quite well at the beginning and
radiantly (literally) at the climax.
One big character in the X-Men comics, and one who’d made a big
splash in the film franchise when he made his debut in X2, is the
character of Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler. Though Alan Cumming had done a
terrific job bringing the mutant to life—and I don’t know why he hadn’t come
back for the Last Stand sequel (that was a HUGE letdown, Fox), Kodi
Smit-McPhee was equally as impressive as the adolescent version of the
character here in X-Men: Apocalypse. Able to nail down the
German accent and mannerisms already established, Smit-McPhee seemed a little
wasted here and I wish they would’ve taken advantage of him more in the
story. He did have a few amusing stolen scenes (like smiling for
the ID photo), but for the most part, he’d just remained a background mutant.
A big upgrade to the character of Ororo Munroe/Storm came from the
performance of Alexandria Shipp as she performed the younger version of the
character we associate so well as being played by Halle Berry. Though
Berry gave it the best she could with the material she had to work with, Shipp
tripled that effort with adapting the look the character has in the comics and
working well in the situations she was given. With the original set of
movies, Berry was criticized for trying to keep up a weird accent in the first
film and losing it in the following films. However, Alexandria Shipp
presented her accent perfectly and seemed to use the power of Storm to great
effect. She seemed a lot more useful to the story given here, more so
than during every one of the other movies Berry had been featured in.
James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender return to form powerfully,
with Fassbender giving us a little more depth with Magneto than we’d ever seen
before. As with the First Class film, his character is driven
because of similar circumstances and he really hammers it home here. Yet,
during some of the story, especially within the third act, he seemed useless
and it’s questionable as to what he’s doing exactly in some scenes. I don’t
think it gives much away, but during a good portion of the climax, he spends a
lot of time floating within a sphere of metal debris, not saying or doing much,
but seemingly meditating as he waits for the battle to conclude.
Alex Summers/Havoc (Lucas Till) is back to introduce his little
brother to the group and remains a sidekick to Professor X throughout the
beginning of this film, not doing much else until a pivotal part of the
movie…there’s not much more I can say about Till’s performance. Maybe we
can really see his range in the film, Monster Truck, when it’s released.
Another rebooted character, Angel, is played by Ben Hardy and he
doesn’t do much but play second (or third or fourth) fiddle to Oscar Isaac’s
Apocalypse. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a pretty cool character, especially
after getting his armor from the main villain, but he just remains a contextual
character with a few battle scenes here and there. Just like Psylocke,
however, I hope to see more of him in future films.
So, the direction, as I’d mentioned, is not bad. Bryan Singer is a very good director,
establishing himself as a go-to man for superhero films such as this. Though he’d missed the mark when trying his
hand in the Superman franchise, I’d
hazard a guess it was not all his misdoings.
He seems to be trying to right all the wrongs fans have complained about
since he’d started his career within the X-Men
series, so I really can’t fault him for that, nor can I say he’s not a good
director. However, it was nice to see a
fresh take in the X-Men mythos when Matthew Vaughn took over the directing
reigns when he had helmed First Class
which seemed to help out Singer when it overlapped into Days of Future Past. I’d say
if Fox wants to save the Fantastic Four franchise
and not let Marvel have the rights back, they should probably let Bryan Singer
take over and direct (or produce) a reboot.
The special effects, at times, were a bit extreme and didn’t seem
realistic, sometimes going balls-out with too much CGI. Most of the time, however, it looked awesome
and blended well with the actors during a lot of the action scenes. The scenes, especially, during Quicksilver’s
heroics at the mansion were spectacular and really gave the audience an idea as
to how fast this character can take his powers.
All in all, the effects have improved throughout these films.
If there’s a complaint that I could make, it’s that the third act
seems to play out too easily, that the battle concludes without a hitch.
Also, and I don’t think this spoils anything if you’ve seen the final trailer
to this film, the cameo by Hugh Jackman as Wolverine seemed unneeded.
Bryan Singer went on the record to say that the scene is pivotal to all the X-Men
films and I really don’t see what he’s talking about. It seemed like
a cheap way to get Wolverine fans excited as a way to get more tickets sold for
the movie. Don’t get me wrong…the scene was cool and I loved it, but
don’t tell me there was something essential about that cameo, Singer.
So, my final “bit” on X-Men: Apocalypse?
As a post script, and it goes without saying, but there’s an
after-credits scene. As a forewarning, you have to be an X-Men comic book
fan to understand it. As passionate as I am about comic books, this was
something I knew nothing about until I researched it online when returning
home. So don’t expect a Hugh Jackman scene or something so easily
understandable…it’s a scene for the diehards and it sounds big as it seems to
be setting up a bigger villain for the next movie.
