“The third one always sucks.” That’s the line Jean Grey uses in the film which is clearly a knock on X-3 but, for many people, it can probably be used to describe the lackluster effort of Bryan Singer’s new film, X-Men: Apocalypse.
Let me first state that it wasn’t the disaster I thought it would be. I’m probably in the minority but I wasn’t a huge fan of Days of Futures Past, that being said I loved the concept of that film as well as the concept for this one. There’s a great storyline here but the way both films were executed didn’t seem to align with my simple expectations, this one more than DoFP. I’ll break down the good and the bad.
The good: I really liked the casting, the costumes, the surprises, some of the continuity and the set pieces. Singer and Co did a great job making this film seem somehow bigger than the last one. He, along with screenwriter Simon Kinberg, managed to tie up events from the original X-Men movies as well as the prior two in this series. The young actors playing Cyclops (Tye Sheridan), Jean Grey (Sophie Turner), Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and Storm (Alexandra Shipp) were excellent in their roles, especially Tye Sheridan. Quicksilver (Evan Peters) was once again the scene stealer, generating the most laughs from the audience.
As for the set pieces and effects, the effects team really blew me out of the water with the level of destruction. It felt like The Day After Tomorrow meets San Andreas in terms of size and scope due to the global scale. Also, the costumes for this go-around were pretty awesome, it’s great to see them evolve and become a little more stylish.
Lastly, there are a couple of awesome surprises that will make X-Men fans in general very happy.
The Bad: While I thought Oscar Isaac was actually really good as Apocalypse, I wasn’t a fan of how he was utilized. This is a behemoth of a mutant, one of the baddest baddies in the X-Men universe. The guy can grow and shrink and essentially do everything so, if that’s the case, why would he not try and wipe out most of his adversaries when they are all so close to him? Why not get gigantic in size in the real world to show your true power? These are things that didn’t happen. Instead, we focus on the four horseman who, other than Magneto (Michael Fassbender), don’t really get that much screen time, which sucks since they’re awesome. All I wanted was to see a Psylocke (Olivia Munn) go to town a few times but her opportunities are limited. Hell, even Jubliee (Lana Condor) is in the film but we don’t even see her use her powers. How the film concludes felt like a copout and everything involving Magneto felt rehashed. While you’re watching his role throughout the film, you could predict what his fate would be pretty easily as soon as another character entered the picture. Oh, and is it bad that I didn’t even care about Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique? She did absolutely nothing for me.
A lot of these issues tie into the script. It’s tough when you have so many characters to balance but, on the same token, this is a film that will crush the box office so why not try and do something creative and unique rather than take an approach that feels almost cookie cutter-like. It might be time for Singer to step back as director, Kinberg as screenwriter and let some other talented folks have a crack at it while they stay on as producers. It’s working out pretty well for Marvel/Disney thus far.
In many ways, X-Men: Apocalypse is just another origin story and, as a result of that, it takes the film down so many notches because it rarely does anything interesting with the narrative and its many characters. There was a huge opportunity to blow audiences out of the water with such a beloved villain but instead Singer missed the mark. The movie isn’t terrible, but I wouldn’t classify it as good either. Simply put, it’s below average but that doesn’t mean I’m not already excited for the next film, I’m hoping they use this as a learning opportunity to shake things up and come back with another winner.
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