Movie Review: X-Men Apocalypse

X-Men: Apocalypse

Despite the relatively lukewarm reviews surrounding X-Men: Apocalypse, I actually find myself enjoying it a lot more than general consensus. In fact, I actually enjoyed Apocalypse more than I do Deadpool. Heresy, I know, I know. By no means is Apocalypse a perfect movie, and it has flaws -- a crapton of flaws -- but it has a lot of good things going on for it and really, I think why it's so lambasted is because it simply can't really compete with its absolutely awesome predecessor, Days of Future's Past. And being released on the coattails of big behemoth superhero movies Civil War and Batman V Superman (both of which I'll gie proper reviews somewhere down the year), as well as the fan-favourite Deadpool, Apocalypse is just kind of unfortunate that it's merely good, not great.

And I think the biggest problem lies in the titular Apocalypse himself. He's... honestly just there. Apocalypse's concept is really cool, a body-hopping ancient mutant with seemingly godlike powers and the basis of many religions, and intent on purging the world of humanity because he thinks that humans have wasted the potential by, y'know, being asshole humans. 

And while the movie tries to make him feel deeper by giving him a long flashback in ancient Egypt and giving him some nice recruiting scenes with Storm and Magneto, Apocalypse himself is really a generic villain. You could replace him with any other big scary villain and he would have the same impact. I mean, Apocalypse himself has never really impressed me in the few Marvel cartoons/comics that starred him -- a good part is thanks to that ridiculous blue lipstick that extends all the way to his ears -- so I guess the movie version of Apocalypse is an improvement? I don't know. 

Apocalypse has a lot of great visual scenes, destroying Cairo and turning it into sand and then into a gigantic hollow pyramid, that cool scene where he unlocks and upgrades the powers of his Horsemen, and has a cool voice, but he never really develops a personality. He seems to be all-powerful, he feels like a threat, yet at the same time absolutely fails in really conveying that sense of threat considering he spends most of his time just standing, looming, fighting mind-battles or merely blocking the attacks of the X-Men instead of actually countering them... and when he does, it's just to choke or break their legs instead of going for the kill. 

Magneto is a lot more entertaining than Apocalypse, but due to the sheer amount of screentime devoted to Apocalypse, I think Magneto's story felt a bit too rocky. That scene where Magneto's daughter cries when his daddy is seemingly taken away by the bad men -- and honestly, Magneto himself has readily surrendered -- and then an arrow stabs straight through both Magneto's daughter and wife, and Magneto just is so angry and sad as he launches the photo locket in a cathartic massacre of the policemen? I thought that was the most beautiful saddest death scene in a superhero movie I've seen in a while. Mostly because it's so sad. It's not a dramatic sacrifice, or a origin-story death... it's just a big, big tragedy as scared people try to arrest Magneto, and even the arrow loosened against Magneto's daughter was an accident more than anything.

And while Magneto does show some really cool visual effects as he ripped the Earth's magnetic pole apart... his conversion really felt transparent by the moment Msytique and Quicksilver walked up to Magneto. And, yes, while I do appreciate that Quicksilver not going into the expected sappy "I'm your son" scenes with Magneto is a nice subversion... I really thought that Magneto turning on Apocalypse really felt too sudden and too predictable.

Also, fuck, the dude's probably killed a whole lot of people with his upgraded magnetic powers. And he got away scott-free! Erik, you're not allowed to complain about your people being killed during the Holocaust anymore, jeez, you probably mass-murdered way more than that with your angry tantrum.

The other mutants that Apocalypse turned into Horsemen were actually major characters in the comics, though they honestly don't get a lot to do either. The movie does make a good job of making the three other Horsemen be relevant and memorable, though. The new Storm is the obvious one, and we explore the whole 'troubled street kid' pre-X-Men version of the character. She meets Apocalypse almost by chance, and she does Storm things -- though, again, like Magneto, her defection really felt too predictable and sudden. Maybe if we had an additional scene where Apocalypse promised not to kill other mutants, and then Storm sees the hypocrisy? I don't know.

Archangel is devolved into just a jackass fighting in cage-fights instead of the more unwilling-hero type character that he was before. We get a pretty cool scene of him in his original Angel form fighting Nightcrawler, and his upgrade into Archangel is accompanied by a horrifying visual as Apocalypse replaces his wings with metal ones that actually grow out of his back. Archangel is just a cool-looking thug, though. And so is Psylocke. Kudos on somehow making Psylocke's insanely fanservicey costume work and look good on-screen, and she does have a lot of cool scenes with her psi-blade things, but ultimately Psylocke is just a very distinctive eye-candy. Archangel and Psylocke did a lot of action scenes, especially compared to the other Horsemen, but they really don't have much of a personality either. They look cool, though!

Also I'm pleased Psylocke didn't die. She really could use a bigger role in the next movie. Or get her own.

Charles... gets bald! We have an explanation! I like it that Charles in this movie takes more of a backseat, settling into his 'mentor the X-Men' role that he was in the comics. He's still prominent, and we did get some nice moments from the dude, but ultimately Charles Xavier had his time to really shine in First Class and Days of Future's Past, and I really want to get another X-Men movie that's about a team of X-Men. And by golly, we did get that. Charles himself is more a plot device than anything, with his action scenes of doing battle against Apocalypse in their minds being a nice way to give Charles something to do in the climax without detracting from the big action scenes done by the others.

And I think that's why I loved this movie so much. Unlike other movies that focused mostly on either Wolverine, Charles, Magneto and Mystique, I think this is really the first X-Men movie since X2 that focused on the X-Men as a team. We get the genesis of the classic X-Men team, even if Storm only defected at the end and Wolverine is merely unleashed upon the world. Cyclops and Jean, two of the pillars of the 'classic' X-Men team, gets introduced and had their first meeting, and I thought it was portrayed really well. Despite showing up in a LOT of the movies, Cyclops never really got much of a personality beyond being the third wheel to Wolverine's quest for Jean's love, and being the stuck-up rulebook boy scout to Wolverine's main character. Jean fares worse, going from love interest to evil split-personality villain. It's nice to see both of them actually given room to breathe and be explored as characters who bond over not being able to control their powerful powers. The duo is joined by Nightcrawler, my favourite X-Man, who finally returns to the movies after a fifteen-year absence. Nightcrawler gets a really cool intro scene as Mystique saves him and ends up tagging along until they reach the X-Mansion, and form a trio of younger mutants compared to the older cast from First Class. 

Jean (played by Sophie Turner, better known as Game of Thrones' Sansa Stark) is a bit more of a cipher than Scott, but she does show a fair amount of persnoality even if she doesn't get to do that much compared to Cyclops and Nightcrawler. We get to see her kindness with the whole Wolverine scene, she gets to embrace the super-awesome Phoenix Force... and her putting up airs of an antisocial girl because she's tired of persecution thanks to her particularly powerful set of powers are all pretty well done. Scott's pretty cool as well, and we see the most of him among the younger mutants. Scott is shown struggling to control his powers in his school, and even Charles is shocked at how powerful Scott's eye-beams ended up being (that was his favourite tree!). And he definitely is not the boy scout that he is in his adult form. We get to see him be a petulant boy -- though not so much that he becomes annoying -- before confiding in Jean, finding a friend in Nightcrawler (and Jubilee, who had like two seconds of screentime) and actually hijacking cars.

Until tragedy strikes, of course, and his brother, Havok, dies in an explosion caused by Apocalypse. Havok has been extremely supportive, and even if he never develops a personality beyond 'nice guy' even if this is his third entry in the movie franchise, his death and the impact it had on Scott really worked pretty well.

Nightcrawler is just a ball of fun scenes, isn't he? "I'm blue!" Crossing himself when he enters the room of bloodied corpses. "I have never been to a mall." That hilarious hairstyle he sports. His constant yes-manning and funny foreigner thing he does. He's just so funny, and, oh man, he shows himself to be really cool in battle too, and fighting Archangel -- who gets my vote as coolest looking horseman -- is a delight that I'm definitely rewatching many many times in the BluRay when it comes out. Nightcrawler gave us the best visuals from X2, and the X-Men movies do know how to do teleportation in a cool way, and it definitely is a great treat to see Nightcrawler back again.

Quicksilver, who makes his triumphant return after utterly stealing the show in Days of Future's Past, is still awesome. He doesn't steal the show as much, but he is in the movie a lot more. Running to the tune of Eurythmics' Sweet Dreams (a personal favourite song of this reviewer) the scene where he just rescues everyone in the exploding X-Mansion and doing all sorts of hilarious things is just great, showing how utterly awesome the power of superspeed is. The offhanded way that he reveals Magneto's parentage to Mystique is hilarious, and he does get a bit of character thanks to his conflict regarding whether he should acknowledge Magneto as his father. And while he ultimately does't tell it to Magneto despite getting the opportunity to, he does accept the X-Men as his new family, showing that, hey, at least Charles got through to him.

Also, Quicksilver totally OWNED Apocalypse in their fight scene. Oh man, that looked awesome and it went on for quite some time too, right up until Apocalypse broke his leg. 

Mystique and Beast both return, reprising their roles as main supporting characters from First Class and Days of Future's Past. It's still weird to have Mystique be cast as a fully heroic character in this new continuity, but I did like what they did with it. Storm and Nightcrawler both recognize Msytique as THE hero of mutants considering her role in DOFP, though Mystique herself seems to just be conflicted and emo. I don't really care all that much about Mystique here, she's just another heroine thrown in the mix, serving as de facto leader of the X-Men while Xavier is incapacitated. Man, that's weird, isn't it? Mystique, leader of the X-Men? And by the end of this movie, Mystique has gone full-blown hero and actually does become leader of the X-Men. I don't know if it's just the casting of Jennifer Lawrence that made the character do a 180 from who she's supposed to be, but at least it makes sense in-universe.

Beast is cool! He does Beast things, being smart and sensible and smart, getting great interactions with Mystique and Charles, and actually getting an extended fight scene against Psylocke, which I honestly didn't expect considering how passive he was in the previous movie. Like Mystique, though, there really isn't much to say about him. He's in the movie a lot, but didn't really, y'know, get to be developed all that much.

Moira is also in the movie a lot, but she fares the worst of the other characters. She literally does nothing other than tell our heroes one thing or another, and while the likes of Beast and Nightcrawler don't get to do much character development, they at least have distinctive fun personalities. Moira seems to just be around to remind us that Charles is straight (and not gay for Magneto, which he really should admit already) and to reverse that awful brainwashing scene at the end of First Class. But, man, Moira really felt wasted and you could literally remove her and introduce a brand-new CIA agent character and no one would really care.

Stryker is a cool mid-movie antagonist, delaying the X-Men enough so that they don't just jump straight to Cairo to rescue Apocalypse before he makes his big dramatic announcement, and I've always liked Stryker from the movies. His ultimate role, though, is facilitating Wolverine's cameo. Stryker himself gets away free, though he does get a couple of nice scenes and lines while debating with the X-Men. 

Wolverine is unleashed from Weapon X, having forgotten his memories from before (and attached to his head is a really weird device) and the movie really helps to portray Wolverine's utter savagery really well. And, yeah, the soldiers he killed are Stryker's men hunting for Cyclops, Jean and Nightcrawler, and you can't blame the kids for trying to survive, but damn, it's brutal. Jean calms Wolverine down enough before he runs away into the cold snow, but it's a cool short scene that helps set up Wolverine for a later date when we hopefully get the original classic team back together again.

There are several lesser characters that showed up too. Jubilee, like I mentioned above, had five seconds of screentime which was a shame. Caliban had a short scene too, where he was Psylocke's previous employer and runs a cool underground broker service that Mystique and Nightcrawler visited. Caliban's cool! I want to see more of him and hoped Apocalypse didn't kill him off-screen. 

In a way, the movie felt less about Apocalypse, and more about setting up the classic team of X-Men, gathering older ones like Mystique and Beast and bringing in the younger generation. Apocalypse honestly just felt like a more epic version of your classic starter villain, your Darth Mauls and Piccolos and General Zods and Zabuza Momochis, but he is enough of a threat to put all the characters in place and help to build them all together. The movie is good on that front, and while there are definitely some problems, it didn't stop me from utterly enjoying this movie.