Hey, folks. I know right about now you’re looking at this page and can’t understand why anyone would have an opinion different than the many internet critics who took in the new movie last week. Maybe I just walked into the screening with a different mentality that day than most.
Up to this point, I’d been generally neutral on this version of Marvel’s mutant universe, established by Bryan Singer’s X-Men movie back in ’98. That flick was ok, and the second Marvel-based movie that was any good after Blade. There were changes from the comic to incorporate Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine being tall instead of short, and we had excellent actors Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen play off each other as Professor X and Magneto respectively. Unfortunately, the rest of the characters such as Cyclops and Storm weren’t portrayed super well, and just about everything seemed to take a back seat to Wolverine’s quest.
Still, it was a decent flick to jump start this universe, and X2: X-Men United stabilized things with a stronger screenplay utilizing all the characters in a much more balanced story while using some influences of the comics effectively. Its ending portended great things, which is why the third film, The Last stand disappointed people massively. This was not the fault of director Brett Rattner (the second backup who was given less time and budget than the previous two) as he still managed to give us a movie with Storm being an effective fighter and Kelsey Grammer giving a perfect performance as Hank “The Beast” McCoy. We also got a fun battle between Iceman and Pyro and even a “Fastball Special” from Wolverine and Colossus. Still, The Juggernaut was terribly realized, tons of characters were killed as one-offs (including Cyclops it seemed) and the promise of a decent Dark Phoenix adaptation from X2 was thrown away.
So folks suffered through two bad stand-alone Wolverine movies and Fox tried an interesting tack in having Matthew Vaughn direct X-Men: First Class. Although it contradicted the comics in having mostly other mutants (outside of the Beast) be the initial team members, it was still well executed with nice touches of Earth during the 60s, anchored by the excellent performances of James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender, who took on the roles of Professor X and Magneto for their early years. Also included was Jennifer Lawrence, whose portrayal of Raven / Mystique became essential and was decent. Nicholas Hoult was brought in to play a coming –of-age version of Hank McCoy. Alex Summers was re-written as being the older brother of Cyclops / Scott Summers, the reversal of what’s in the comics.
Then the story moved to the 70s and the future simultaneously in the very effective Days of Future Past. We saw many of the characters & actors of the initial trilogy facing extinction in the future and deciding the only way to change things was to psychically send Wolverine back to his past self to gather the First Class characters and stop Raven from a horrible mistake. I was very aware the original comic story sent Kitty Pride physically into the past for similar reasons, but once they announced Wolverine would do so instead I went with it and it was still a pretty good flick. Bryan singer returned to helm this story and it was a great continuation. We got to see two different iterations of the giant Sentinel robots, as well as bellbottoms and other 70s fashions. All in all, it was a pretty good film, as the ending left the possibility for a big villain to come.
So now we come to the new flick, X-Men: Apocalypse, in which the teased villain comes to the forefront. The story starts initially in ancient Egypt, where mutant En Sabah Nur (Oscar Isaac) has built his temple with four other mutants serving him alongside a human army keeping folks in line. En attempts to carry out a ritual that will make him stronger, but the humans decide they’ve had enough of this false god ruling them and seemingly end his reign.
Cut to America in the 1980s and we meet high school student Scott Summers (Tye Sheridan) who experiences a burning sensation in his eyes while in class. It’s such an intense and powerful experience that his older brother Alex comes to see about him and decides the best person to help Scott would be his old friend Charles Xavier. In the period since Days of Future Past, Charles has converted his mansion into a School For Gifted Youngsters, which has many students, including young Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) whom Scott makes a terrible impression on. Hank McCoy is also residing there doing all kinds of mechanical research and refinements.
Meanwhile, in Europe, Erik Lehnserr has retired his Magneto persona and lives as a steel worker and family man. Elsewhere, Mystique has become a bit of a folk hero over the last 10 years, saving mutants and giving them a chance at new lives. Ever since she rescued President Nixon from a mutant attack, the world has taken various views regarding them, positive and negative. One group is making mutants fight in cage matches, such as the one which the winged Angel and teleporter Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee) are involved in until Mystique shows up. In Egypt though the mutant problem goes largely unmentioned until CIA agent Moira MacTaggart (Rose Byrne) who has totally forgotten her First Class adventure, comes to track down a cult doing an archaeological dig in search of a powerful ancient being foretold to bring about the end of the world….
As you may have surmised, a lot of elements come into play for this movie. Singer’s story draws out over time, helping the audience to re-acquaint with the previously seen characters and actors. They are the ones best served by the screenplay here. The new ones are just being introduced as we see them start off as kids who are forced to grow up rather quickly with everything going on. As they are thrust so quickly into events, we see the new X-Men deal with various situations (from different viewpoints) but we don’t get to know them enough just yet. They wind up coming together to take on the threat that En (eventually known as Apocalypse) represents. So the story itself is more of a focus than the new characters participating in it.
Still, though, the story and overall direction are solid. Many of the previous films incorporate some elements of the comics but only so much. This movie feels a good step closer to giving long time X-Men fans more of what they might be familiar with as comic readers and or watchers of the various cartoons. It cherry picks from some of the better aspects of X-Men lore actually makes a reasonable story. Some things are different due to how previous films have depicted history but it’s coming full circle with this movie. I know many were unhappy for example about how Mystique is a leader here, but why wouldn’t someone with 20 years of experience be looked up to by a group of teenagers who barely know how to control their powers? Also, there’s one scene in particular you’ll likely hear folks talk about that’s ripped right out of the comics, and made me a very happy fanboy for a time.
There’s so much in Marvel’s mutantverse so I don’t mind amalgamation for the big screen. I could take it in stride much like the Marvel Cinematic Universe that’s exploded since the 2000s, so long as the characters themselves were respectfully treated as their comic counterparts. There have been both good and bad films at Fox (to say nothing of the Generation X flick. *shudder*) and we’ve gotten an insanely awesome Deadpool flick, besides. Comparatively, this is one of the better entries of the narrative as a whole.
Acting wise, McAvoy, Fassbender and Lawrence were still decent as they’ve settled into their roles over the years. The kids, though, need a bit of tweaking, maybe replacing in the next flick. It’s jumping ahead 10 years to the 90s, so I’m hoping we’ll have an effective Cyclops being team leader with Jean and Nightcrawler and Storm (with a good accent like she has here) and the like. They’re just starting out here so I’ll forgive them on that this time. Isaac makes a good Apocalypse, manipulative and calculating and quite evil. He wants only the strong with him ruling the Earth and looks like he’ll get his way, alongside his Four Horsemen. Also, please don’t worry about his voice from the first trailer. What’s presented in this movie sounds like it was taken straight from the 90s X-Men cartoons, modulation and all.
Al in all, X-Men Apocalypse, is a small step down from the recent 2 other films in terms of execution and screen time. There are some scenes which would’ve been more effective had they been shorter, instead of omitted; maybe about 10-15 minutes total for better flow. Other than this, there’s a lot to enjoy here. Singer takes full advantage of placing this story in the 80s which make for a fun setting. Also, out of all the X-movies to date, this one has the best ending fight against a major villain and like before a new evil is teased at the end. So I have to say it’s very much worth your time to check out the flick.
Grade: B/ B+