X-Men: Apocalypse

Whelp, the X-Men franchise just took a step back with this one.

Yet again directed by franchise alum Bryan Singer, X-Men: Apocalypse is all about the end of the world and the misunderstood heroes that intend to stop such an event from happening. Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac), the very first mutant born in the era of the Egyptians, awakens from his really, really long slumber and has decided that the world has become a nasty, bothersome place, thus it must be cleansed. He’s disappointed with how mutant-kind has shaped up, angry at the weakness inherent in humanity as a whole and in his eyes, the weak shall perish and the strong shall survive, so he sets out to recruit four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Storm (Alexandra Shipp), Psylocke (Olivia Munn), Angel (Ben Hardy), and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) all of whom will help Apocalypse achieve his vision of remaking the world while simultaneously trying to stave off Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and his merry band of mutants from foiling his dastardly plans.

If I’m counting correctly, X-Men: Apocalypse is the seventh sequel to the original film (counting the Wolverine movies but not counting Deadpool) and boy, does it show. Coming off the heels of two of my personal favorite X-Men films, First Class and Days of Future Past, this film had a lot going for it heading in. With Days of Future Past essentially pulling a soft reboot of the franchise with younger versions of old characters taking point, X-Men: Apocalypse seemed poised to breath new life into a franchise that has its fair share of ups and downs. Sadly, this one is more on the down slope side of things than anything else.

It’s not that Apocalypse is a bad film, far from it, it’s just disappointing, and as I’m sure everyone can attest from life experiences, disappointment is sometimes worse than a complete train wreck. From the get go something felt off about the proceedings. Forget that Apocalypse himself is very hit or miss in the visuals department, or the fact that returning X-Men look no older than when this entire rebooted franchise started up with First Class which took place in the 60’s (this film takes place in the 80’s), but everything that this movie tries to set up or accomplish over the course of its runtime just seems very stale and unexciting. In fact, this film seems more in line with the bomb that X-Men: The Last Stand was than anything else, meaning that it has some true potential buried within it, only for it to be wasted by filmmakers who just don’t seem to have the grasp of these characters or their complicated situations in the way they think they do.

There’s so many other ways this movie could have panned out, but with an extremely amateurish script that excels in cringe inducing one-liners, boring story decisions and character development that ends just as it begins (or just flat out doesn’t make sense), it’s no wonder this film was tough to get into. For example, Magneto has a pretty great character arc going for him at the beginning of the film. Some shit goes down and just as things seem to be getting juicy for our magnetized meanie, Apocalypse shows up and basically recruits him to float around and listen to him talk about what he’s gonna do next in order to further his world ending cause. In fact, the same problem springs up for all four of the Horsemen and for Apocalypse himself: they’re more of a means to an end than actual characters, many of them barely having speaking lines and do little more than stand around and sneer at everyone like they were just released from the clink and need to put on a “game face” so people don’t fuck with them. It’s like the filmmakers didn’t know how to wrangle everyone together in an organic and interesting way nor knew how to deal with a mutant God, so they kinda just slapped everyone together, then neutralized our all-powerful villain by having him talk more than take action.

I didn’t mind Isaac’s portrayal of Apocalypse, he’s actually not that bad at points, the problem lies in the fact that the filmmakers just didn’t give him anything to do for most of the movie. Sure he wants to “remake” the world, but there’s no real conflict pushing the story forward in any meaningful way until about halfway through the film when the X-Men finally catch wind of Apocalypse’s plot. It’s here that things start to have a sense of urgency that the first half of the film lacks, but it’s still too little too late and with so many plotlines in motion, it’s hard to care about anything happening onscreen.

Speaking of not caring about shit that should matter, the young and old X-Men alike seem to be an afterthought and considering that this is an X-Men film, that’s kinda disturbing. The material regarding the “core” cast of Cyclops (Tye Sheridan), Jean Grey (Sophie Turner), and Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee) bothered me because the script is pretty blatant about planting the idea that these kids are most certainly going to be the new X-Men, but the whole problem with this is that they really don’t prove themselves to be a real team or have any rapport with one another outside of some clunky dialogue and relatively stagnant action scenes. If I’m supposed to believe that this is the next incarnation of the X-Men then I’m not convinced. Nothing felt earned here, or anywhere in the script really, so for a movie that hinges on this new generation and the experiences that should bind them, I walked away feeling a bit underwhelmed.

As for the new actors, they aren’t bad, most doing their jobs just fine, but it’s the few standouts in Nightcrawler and returning mutant Quicksilver (Evan Peters) that show the most potential, the latter having the best scene in the film that essentially mimics his other stand out sequence from the Days of Future Past. Other than this though, there really isn’t much to write home about. Most scenes are forgettable, none really cementing their place in the pantheon of the best X-Men film moments, and while I love that cameo (think hard and you can figure out who it is), it seems more like the filmmakers threw this in to save a sinking ship rather than having a real reason for him to show up. Couple that with characters that are completely unnecessary like Rose Byrne’s Moira MacTaggert, and you have a film that is overstuffed with material that just isn’t worth our time, which is especially disheartening considering that a lot of other events and relationships present in the film could have been mined for a much better payoff and entertainment value.

For all of the bad, this is still an X-Men movie, and being the nerd that I am, I can’t say that I still didn’t enjoy at least some of what transpired on screen. X-Men is still a franchise that gets me excited and truly does have a lot going for it, this just isn’t the movie I was hoping for or expecting. A few laughs here, a couple solid action scenes there, and I still enjoyed enough of it to know that all is not completely lost, but we still have a ways to go if this is to be the future direction of the series.

X-Men: Apocalypse, in all honesty, is just as “bad” as Batman v Superman, and if you don’t see that plain as day then you’re not paying close enough attention. While BvS was a mediocre movie by unfortunate design, at least they tried to put together something worthwhile and entertaining, Apocalypse on the other hand, does next to nothing new and is dragged down by a lazy script and a director that has seen better days. This is by no means bad movie; it’s a completely okay film that pretends to be something more than it actually is, and in the end, that’s what’s so disappointing about it. I still have faith in this franchise, especially with the numerous teases regarding future films, but if I had to sum the experience up in two words, I’d go with these: lost potential.