X-Men: Apocalypse | Review
Bryan Singer returns for his fourth take on the X-Men franchise and, unfortunately, it’s probably his worst.
That’s not to say ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ isn’t a good film. I think it’s quite fun, entertaining, and good. But with Hollywood being saturated with so many superhero films nowadays, we can’t accept anything less than greatness. That’s what the X-Men films have usually been – pretty great. That’s why I find it so disappointing that the culmination of the new trilogy ends so poorly.
The titular character is supposed to be one of the most powerful villains in the Marvel comics, yet he’s portrayed so weakly. First off, you barely see Apocalypse do anything amazing with his powers. I only remember several instances of teleportation and evaporating people into the floor or walls. He’s not physically imposing enough.
Bryan Singer and writer Simon Kinberg have consistently stated that Apocalypse’s main “power” in the film is his “power of persuasion.” I call BS. Going in with this knowledge, I expected Apocalypse to be incredibly convincing and for the film to have exceptional writing in his scenes – the ones where he’s recruiting his four horsemen and “persuade” them to join him. Persuasion? I’m not convinced. Barely any logical reason is given to why Storm, Angel, or Psylocke join him. The same applies to Magneto, but at least the film somewhat tries by providing a great backstory regarding Magneto’s new life he’s made for himself the past ten years.
Really, the scenes with Magneto before he joins Apocalypse are some pretty heavy, yet great, stuff. I wish there were more of it! After Magneto joins Apocalypse, he’s totally wasted and has nothing to do. And speaking of waste, let’s get back to Apocalypse. When you have a talented actor like Oscar Isaac, you can’t just have him do nothing! Anyone could’ve been behind all that makeup and prosthetics. I don’t believe having an actor like Oscar Isaac made any difference. Storm was written poorly. Angel was wasted. Psylocke was an afterthought.
On the heroes’ side, great actors and characters are wasted too. James McAvoy barely has anything to do. The new (old?) characters, Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Nightcrawler, are fun additions but we don’t get enough time to develop them because the film tries to balance so many new characters all at once, in addition to Apocalypse and his four horsemen.
The worst thing about ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ is Jennifer Lawrence. No, I don’t mean Mystique. I mean JENNIFER LAWRENCE. I understand she’s probably done with the series, but when you’re getting paid millions of dollars to be in a successful franchise, at least give a damn. She clearly looks bored playing the role and she clearly phoned in her entire performance. She’s mentioned before how much she hates the Mystique prosthetics and it shows here – she’s barely blue-skin Mystique in the film.
It’s sad to see the new trilogy end so poorly. Sure, Bryan Singer started it all when he made the original ‘X-Men’ film (his film was one of the biggest contributions to the superhero genre in the 21st century, with Sam Raimi’s ‘Spider-Man’), and he topped it with ‘X2: X-Men United’, which is often considered one of the best sequels and superhero films of all time. The very bad, but still entertaining ‘X-Men: The Last Stand’ wasn’t made by Bryan Singer, so he gets a pass. When the series was rebooted with ‘X-Men: First Class‘, it was exciting. We had a talented ensemble cast (Fassbender, McAvoy, Lawrence, even Kevin Bacon) and the series was reinvigorated with a new 60s period setting and great villain. This was all thanks to director Matthew Vaughn (‘Kingsman: The Secret Service’), whose talent and creativity offered a breath of fresh air for the series. He brought it back to life. Unfortunately he had to drop out for the sequel, but we celebrated Bryan Singer’s return to the director’s chair with ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’. Balancing a complex time travel story with both the old and new ensemble cast was tough to handle, but Singer pulled it off extremely well. That’s why we expected the same level of care and craft for ‘Apocalypse’, which we didn’t get.
I think the biggest reason why the film didn’t work story-wise is because it had a weak villain. This isn’t something only the X-Men films deal with, heck, even Marvel’s box-office juggernauts usually feature badly developed villains. But the main X-Men films excelled because there was a good antagonist, and that’s usually when it pitted Xavier and his X-Men against Magneto in their different ideologies. ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ falters because the entire world is at stake but we the audience don’t care about the rest of the people in this world. It’s so cliche, been there done that. The film doesn’t take any time to make us care about the world ending. Why the best X-Men films work is because there’s legitimate stakes, ones that don’t involve the world ending but more about relationships, or personal lives, ending. We care about Xavier and Magneto in ‘First Class’, and when they clash, we care about both. Peter Dinklage’s character in ‘Days of Future Past’ may be the “villain”, but the true conflict was between the major characters.
Besides the weak villain and poorly developed new characters, the story was disappointing because it was all set-up for something big, but that something big ended up being anti-climactic. Apocalypse uses the first 2/3 of the film recruiting his four horsemen. Das it. In the final battle, sure it’s kinda cool and has good special effects, but it’s also kind of boring because, again, there’s no real emotional stakes. And the way the battle ended…. so, so lame.
All this criticism makes it sound like I really didn’t like this film LOL. But believe me, I didn’t hate it. I enjoyed it for sure. But it’s just far from the greatness of the past films in this series. Some good things that worked: Quicksilver once again steals any scene he’s in, and he also gets a big fun sequence similar to the one in ‘Days of Future Past’; all the actors are good; the film moves at a consistently brisk pace; the Wolverine sequence is cool.
In conclusion, ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ is the worst film in the main series since ‘X-Men: The Last Stand’, but it’s not as bad as that one. It’s a solidly entertaining superhero flick that can balance its serious tones with joy, and it features an exceptional cast. It’s just unfortunate the film has a weak villain, too many new characters, and concludes the story of the main trio (Xavier, Magneto, Mystique) so poorly when it started off so great in ‘First Class’.
Two and a half out of four Kent's.
Extra Notes:
1) The X-Men films are, for some reason, the forgettable batch when compared to the MCU and DCEU films. That’s not my personal opinion, it’s just a matter of fact. Their box office receipts are not nearly as big as those by the MCU, and X-Men’s been around for much longer. Why is that? And ‘Deadpool’, a film considered canon in the X-Men universe, made more money than any X-Men film EVER. Why? I honestly can’t tell you. If the Avengers made over a billion dollars because it was considered the first time so many superheroes were in one film together, why is the hype not the same for X-Men, which always features several superheroes together?
2) Each film in the new trilogy takes place in a new decade. ‘First Class’ in the 60’s, ‘Days of Future Past’ in the 70’s, and ‘Apocalypse’ in the 80’s…. yet the main actors still look the same damn age. It bothers me A LOT.
