X-Men: Apocalypse is the third
film in the new x-team series (as I call it), the sixth X-Men film
overall, the eighth if you count both Wolverine movies, and ninth if
you also count the Deadpool movie. (Dude, the tenth one should just
be called X-Men: X!) That's a big universe to follow, but if you
remember 2014's Days of Future Past you'll recall that the
slate was wiped half-clean. So how does the latest X-flick add on to
the legacy of one of the longest-running superhero franchises ever?
Clumsily is the word I'd choose. Let me
explain why. The film – or at least the version I saw – opens
with Alexandra Shipp (Storm) thanking the audience for
attending/repaying the film crew's hard work and wishing them an
exciting viewing experience... OK then. The frick was that? Some kind
of preemptive apology?
Apocalypse takes place in 1983,
ten years after the events of DoFP which means that we get to see our
favourite mutant characters in some bodacious 80's hairstyles.
Magneto has finally found a peaceful life. Or has he? Yeah, I'm not
spoiler alerting this one as it's such an obvious plot device that
you can see it coming a mile away. The only thing surprising about it
is that both the most precious things in Magneto's life are ended by
the clumsiest policeman in film history; seriously, the guy gets a
no-scope double kill with a freakin' bow! Anyways, the ancient
Egyptian super-mutant Apocalypse is awakened from his 5500-year
slumber and intends to establish himself as the god of Earth. He's so
powerful that he causes all of the world's nukes to launch and hang
in orbit until people just sort of forget about them... um. So what
happened to them? Did they just disappear? What a let down! I thought
something really cool was going to happen with those tens of
thousands of nukes, but we're just supposed to forget them? Lame! So
the X-Men must band together if they're to have any hope of defeating
Apocalypse and his Four Horsemen (who don't really do much until the
end). It's a story that does provide a bunch of fun and interesting
scenes, but it also meanders a lot. The film is loaded with scenes
that didn't need to be added. For example, there's a scene in which
the entire X-mansion is destroyed (from just one little jet
engine blowing up) which only serves as a chance to show off
Quicksilver's abilities as in the kitchen scene from last film.
Another is when Quicksilver reveals that Magneto is his father, but
again this plot thread goes nowhere and hardly adds anything to the
story. But the worst case is when a bunch of characters are kidnapped
and taken away to Colonel Stryker's Weapon X test site. This 15-20
minute scene only exists for the sole purpose of shoving in a
Wolverine cameo. All of these scenes are wholly inconsequential to
the plot and feel like they were only added to provide some
unnecessary fan service.
One thing I do have to commend this
movie on is that it has the largest roster of characters of any X-Men
flick yet. The only downside to this is that the writers clearly
didn't know what to do with all of them. A lot of the time you'll be
wondering “what is _____ doing right now?” Half the time the
answer is “standing around, doing nothing.” The worst offender in
this category is Moira MacTaggert. I know she doesn't have
superpowers, but could you at least have given her something
to do other than standing there looking worried? (Actually she is
responsible for Apocalypse awakening, so yeah, everything bad in this
movie is her fault.) Another problem I've noticed with a lot of the
characters is that they don't seem to age. Shouldn't Xavier and
Mystique be in their mid-40's by now? Shouldn't Havok be about 35ish?
Again, MacTaggert is especially affected with this ailment; Xavier
himself remarks at how she “hasn't aged a day” in the past 21
years. Remember how Moira was a competent enough character in
First Class, but she had her memory wiped at the end? Well, in
Apocalypse the payoff to that is that she's now a clueless
airhead who is the butt of a lot of lame jokes. Also, if you blink
you'll miss Jubilee. I smell deleted scenes. But not all the
characters suck, in fact some are done even better than they were in
original trilogy like Jean Grey, Nightcrawler, and Cyclops (even if
his personality seems a little inconsistent at times). Even the
longtime established characters get some development, like Mystique
and Magneto. And best of all, Xavier is now bald!
Maybe it's just me, but the CG effects
didn't look all that good, which is a shame because the makeup
effects looked great. At one point an early Metallica song, “The
Four Horsemen”, is used during one of Apocalypse's scenes. That was
awesome. Less impressive was the film's use of the Auschwitz scene
from the very first X-Men film in 2000. That makes this the
third time we've seen this footage. How lazy is that? They should
have been concentrating on giving us a Ronald Reagan impersonator.
What is impressive is the number of
things in this film that wind up being unintentionally funny: scenes
with people getting partially stuck in walls, people yelling “no!”
in an overly dramatic fashion, security camera close-ups, Apocalypse
randomly building a statue of himself and his minions in the middle
of a frantic battle scene, and scenes with people in the background
standing together staring at eachother. I chuckled a fair bit.
On the whole, X-Men: Apocalypse
is a great big mess. The script would have seriously benefited from
another proofread or two. If you liked the previous two X-Men movies,
then you'll probably like this one. Otherwise it's just more of the
same from a franchise that really needs to try something new next
time. There's one scene where some characters walk out of a theatre
after seeing Return of the Jedi and one of them jokes that a
franchise's “third movie is always the worst”. Couldn't have said
it better myself.
Grade: two and a half out of five.
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