Okay, here is my darkest secret: I never *loved* the X-MEN movies.
Wait,
wait! Don’t misunderstand me. I never hated them as much as I appreciate but
never got into them. They do offer a vast amount of great moments that lifts
the staying power of otherwise dated, middlebrow action movies. I mean to be
honest, had it not been for the potent civil rights allegory, the iconic lead
roles, and X2s big step forward for the franchise at the time, the X-MEN movies
(The Last Stand and Wolverine Origins especially) would barely hold any lasting
weight outside of noticeably dated CG, bad costumes, limp stories, and not a
clear sense of grand scope. We excuse all that back then because,
comparatively, they stand better than all the baggage of bad 90s superhero
movies at the time, but looks a bit limp now that the genre reached a
renaissance with The Avengers, The Dark Knight, Spider Man, among others.
And
for a moment, there might be a chance to update or even reinvigorate this
series, what with First Class being awesome, Days of Future Past being better
than expected, and Deadpool actually having fun with itself. But after watching
Apocalypse… all that goodwill immediately vanishes.
X-Men
Apocalypse, while not a total disaster, pretty much encapsulates the bland,
dated, and totally clumsy aspects of the older X-Men movies with the sparse
amount of good things spaced out by uninspired or flat-out bad things. It never
rises any more than above average and occasionally falls below it, but it is
overall better than what it could have been.
BIG
SPOILERS!!!
The
story, for the record, seems pretty simple but to a fault. Apparently there was
an ancient, all-powerful mutant called Apocalypse who, after a century-long
power nap, inadvertently gets reawakened and decides that mankind needs to be
destroyed because how else do we set up the third act fight scene? In doing so,
he unites a new set of mutants (or old mutants but younger), while also
amplifying their powers in an attempt to kidnap Charles Xavier so that they can
use his mind powers (GEE, THAT SOUNDS FAMILIAR!!) Meanwhile, the mutants back
at the Mansion, both old and new, pretty much dawdle around until a major plot
turn prompts them to stop him and his rogue mutants. No, really, that’s it.
Now a
simple story wouldn’t be a total issue, but that’s only if it allows some
compelling connective tissue. As a screenwriter, your options are A): add some
interesting character dynamics, arcs, or even just world-building, or B): add
needlessly complicated plot points that at least prompt the characters to
trudge along until the final blowout. Sadly, this movie does neither, thus
making the whole story feel empty and unmotivated. During the transition to the
second act, after almost 40 minutes of character introductions and pointless meandering,
the film then detours to a pointless Wolverine cameo, where the young Stryker
kidnaps the mutants for some reason. After that, they decide NOW to go to Egypt
to stop Apocalypse and bring back their professor. There’s no rising or falling
action, no defining themes that gave this series its lasting weight, no further
explanation to its jumbled continuity (why is Wolverine taken in by the real
Stryker rather than Mystique from the last movie?) no 80s-era context outside of
pointless banter about how bad the third Star Wars movie was (Do you smell
irony?), or no compelling stakes at hand, despite the movie insisting how
powerful Apocalypse looks by destroying the city, because that hasn’t been done
enough already.
This monotony also extends
to the characters. The new characters like Angel, Storm, Psylocke, and
Nightcrawler have no purpose outside of fighting. Mystique at one point
positions herself as a revolutionary for the mutants – because who isn’t sick
of seeing Jennifer Lawrence pulling that shtick again – but then hangs at the
background. Magneto gets a new family at least, but it serves no purpose other
than the movie needed for him to get sad and be the bad guy again. There is a stunning,
albeit stupid plot twist involving Quicksilver that goes nowhere in the end,
but he’s once again extraneous and only there for that same speed show from the
last movie. Oh hey! Jubilee is finally in these movies, but for pretty much the
same role as the old X-Men cartoon, which is to say none. Kudos to Michael Fassbender and James McAvory for at least trying their best, but the limiting character developments cripples their genuine engagement from the other movies. Only Jean Grey comes
close to any dimension, growing from a frightened mutant tormented by her
powers and then fully blossom in an admittedly dazzling finale.
But then there’s
Apocalypse, played by the unfortunate Oscar Isaac. I could go on by how dull
and aloof the other performance is (Jennifer Lawrence in particular looks so
bored and fed-up with this movie it feels like a protest) but Isaac as
Apocalypse in particular delivers the most unforgivably ridiculous performance.
To say nothing of his boring character and over complicated set of powers, but the way this potentially great talent is clearly slogging through his cliched role, as though his glaringly terrible makeup
design wasn’t bad enough.
Speaking of design, you’d
think the film's saving grace would be the action and the CG, right? WRONG!
Further proving that X-Men veteran Bryan Singer possesses no grasp on big-scale
stories like this (ask me about Jack and
the Giant Slayer some time), this movie inherits the worst of the old
movies, with awful CGI, flat aesthetic, overuse of establishing shots, and
uninspired fight scenes. I’m not saying that Singer is a bad director more than
I’m saying that he works best in small-scale thrillers like Usual Suspects and even Valkyrie. Now it seems like the reigns
of Matthew Vaughn have totally slipped the proceedings, delivering the same
TV-level style that I thought we passed over by now. Even the fight scene with Xavier and Apocalypse in a dream sequence/psyche fight looks overstuffed and goes on for way too long.
Believe me, folks; I wanted to like this movie. I wanted a comic book movie other than Disney that
could really prove as a true competitor in the modern movie landscape. But as I
stand, X-Men Apocalypse is too reliant on the old with not much new to the
table. The action scenes are fake-looking even for superhero standards, the plot stretches so thin, there is an abundance of missed opportunities with themes and any sort of allegories, the dialogue made me cringe, the chemistry between the characters lost their spark and now feels forced, and it all adds up to a big pile of "whatever". Here is to hoping that the next movie, or rather a new production crew,
would finally give this tired franchise the X-Men First Class level high back.
As it stands, its nowhere above serviceable.
Rating: 5.5/10
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