X-Men: Apocalypse Movie Review

"Everything they've built will fall! And from the ashes of their world, we'll build a better one!"

-Apocalypse

It's been a while since I've written up a review, but before I start back tracking to all the movies I've wanted to write about, I figured I would start with the movie that's freshest in my mind. X-Men: Apocalypse holds that honor, for better or worse. The X-Men series has had some great highs and some terrible lows, as any comic book movie fan would know. This newest installment fits somewhere in the middle of all that. It boasts of a mix of new comers to the franchise like Sophie Turner and Tye Sheridan to the familiar faces of Jennifer Lawrence, Jame McAvoy, and Michael Fassbender. And we can't forget the titular villain himself, Apocalypse, played by Oscar Isaac. I loved, loved, loved X-Men: Days of Future Past so my expectations may have been set a little high despite my gut feeling that it wasn't going to be quite the hit. It is also very difficult to not compare these blockbuster superhero films to each other in one way or another, when they're coming out so close together! That being said, I will try my best to review this film fairly and separately from the other superhero films fresh in my head.

So what's going on in this new X-men movie? To movie goers who haven't followed the franchise very closely, things may be a little confusing, especially since Fox doesn't seem to care much for continuity. But this is the third film in which Lawrence, McAvoy, and Fassbender reprise their roles as Mystique, Professor X and Magneto, respectively. It has been ten years since the events of Days of Future Past and the year is 1983. Director Brian Singer does a decent job of making it feel like the 80's with the costumes and references, but especially with the Return of the Jedi joke which doubled up as a jab at X-Men 3. But all our characters are scattered. Mystique is out in the world trying to help mutants while staying off the grid, not fond of the hero title that came with her actions in the previous movie. Magneto is in Poland, working at a steel factory (how fitting) married, and has a daughter. I was honestly surprised at this choice but I did like it, and it brought me joy to see this terribly troubled character living a happy life, if only for what seemed like a minute for the audience. Charles Xavier is still doing his thing at his school for the gifted, taking in young mutants and providing a safe environment to socialize and grow. Everything's nice and dandy until we throw Apocalypse into the mix.

Roughly, the first half of the movie was fantastic in my opinion. It had plenty of potential to be great, but fell short in the latter half. Take the first ten minutes or so, which Singer utilizes to give us Apocalypse's origin. It was beautiful and did what it had to do perfectly. We got the tone of his presence, we got his four horseman, and we got perfect set up for the rest of the film. He was betrayed by a small group and was trapped in an eternal slumber for thousands of years. What got me a little upset was the way he was awakened. I understand it's a movie and I do look past certain plot devices at times, but the premise of this whole narrative hinged on Apocalypse being awoken, and it happened in such a trivial way. Rose Byrne's character, Moira Mactaggart, tracks down the place where these radical worshipers have uncovered an ancient site, and she so happens to leave the door open so that sunlight conveniently travels down the tomb and wakes Apocalypse.

The Mystique/Lawrence controversy is what leaves a bad taste in my mouth, especially since it seeps through into the movie. Back when she took on the role in "First Class" she wasn't quite the A-lister she is today, and spent more time in the full body makeup. As the trilogy went on, the time she spent in the makeup went down, and the fact that I knew it was because Lawrence didn't want to go through the process made it worse. If you aren't willing to devote yourself to a key role in a beloved series, then don't take the job. Also the fact that Singer decided to revolve the films around Mystique's character was a choice that I really disagreed with. She was pretty much just cashing checks by the time Apocalypse came around. On the other hand, McAvoy and Fassbender were great as usual and I wish we saw more of them on screen. Everyone else's performances ranged from okay to good, except for Olivia Munn's character Psylocke who was totally wasted and just served as eye candy I suppose.

Instead of making this a smaller movie with more personal stakes, Apocalypse takes the generic world ending path, and pays for it. The final battle, which I was really looking forward to was nothing more than metal flying everywhere and cheesy one on one battles with cheesy one liners, between characters I didn't care about. I wanted to really like Apocalypse because I think Oscar Isaac is fantastic, but they could have gotten a dozen other actors for the role and the movie wouldn't have been much different. The film had its moments for sure and there were some parts that put a huge grin on my face but I don't think it was a good follow up to "Days of Future Past". I will say the Quicksilver scene was once again hilarious and one of the highlights of the film. And ironically enough, Singer roasted himself with the third film always being the worst of a trilogy joke, because this movie proved that right. I enjoyed X-Men Apocalypse but it was a rather mediocre installment in the X-Men series. By no means was it the worst X-Men movie to date so I give it a score of 6.5 out of 10.