X-Men: Apocalypse

Starring: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Oscar Isaac, Evan Peters, Rose Byrne, Josh Helman, Sophie Turner, Tye Sheridan, Lucas Till, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Ben Hardy, Alexandra Shipp, Lana Condor, Olivia Munn, Zeljko Ivanek, Hugh Jackman (uncredited)
Directed by: Bryan Singer
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Action, Adventure, Science Fiction
2016

Times Seen:
Tim: 2

Summary:The X-Men face their greatest battle when the original mutant, Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac) awakes after centuries and begins assembling his Horsemen to overtake the world.

Review:
Tim: My anticipation for X-Men: Apocalypse was very high. We were coming off a franchise renaissance with First Class and Days of Future Past, both great movies and among the strongest of the entire franchise (although X2: X-Men United is still the best film in the franchise. This movie would end the new trilogy and it introduced a fan favorite villain, the ultra-cool Apocalypse. It would be nice having a big bad guy other than Magneto for once. I was stoked about the casting, too- Oscar Isaac is a great actor and I was so excited for him to play Magneto. The new class was impressive, too. All signs pointed to this being another great X-Men movie. And then the first picture of Isaac as Apocalypse came out and the reaction was.....not good. I have to admit, it gave me pause. He just looked goofy. The trailers soon followed and it seemed like something was amiss. We were promised this would be the biggest scope of the franchise, an X-Men disaster movie. What we ended up getting was the worst film in the franchise. Apocalypse is still a good movie- there's enough here for Bryan Singer to work with, but you can't leave this movie feeling anything but a massive disappointment.

There's so many problems with this movie. The biggest one is (tell me if this sounds familiar) there's just too many characters in the film. The cast is massive and we don't get enough time with them. This is often a severe annoyance, but it was absolutely fatal to this film. The worst is the four Horsemen of Apocalypse. One is Magneto- I love Fassbender in this role, but we need to move away from Magneto. He takes up way too much screen time in this film. Another is Psylocke. I was so excited that we'd finally see her on screen, until Olivia Munn was cast. Munn might look at her, but she's a talentless bum that detracts from every film she's in. Singer gives her almost no lines and I completely forgot she was in the movie for long stretches of it. That's good to limit Munn's impact, but why introduce this character if we aren't going to get to know her? You could say the same thing about Alexandra Shipp's Storm- we don't get any time with her and so she's meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Angel gets the worst treatment of all- I couldn't tell you a single thing about this one-dimensional character. These four (three of whom are new characters to this trilogy), plus the introduction of the titular Apocalypse takes a massive amount of screen time to set up. As if that wasn't problematic enough, we also get Cyclops, Jean Grey, Jubilee, and Nightcrawler to deal with. While we know these characters, we're reintroduced to them in this trilogy here. I loved the casting of Tye Sheridan, Sophie Turner, and Kodi Smit-McPhee- they absolutely nailed these three key roles. Each are strong young actors who have huge careers ahead of them. We do get to spend some time with them, but not enough. I didn't forget the actress who plays Jubilee- she's beyond an afterthought and is completely wasted here. What was Bryan Singer thinking? Don't forget, we also need to check in with James McAvoy (who is great as always), Jennifer Lawrence (who again gets too big of a role because she's a star), Nicholas Hoult (who is fine), Evan Peters (again, stealing scenes left and right) and Rose Byrne, who took the last film off (I love her, so it was great to see her back). There's a maddeningly overwhelming amount of characters and stories going on in this film and even with an asininely long 2 hour, 24 minute run time, the movie crumbles under the weight.

The other big issue is that nothing ever feels all that much at stake. Yes, Apocalypse has his world domination plan, but most of the fighting takes place between the X-Men and his Horsemen. He never seemed all that menacing or all that memorable. This was supposed to be a disaster movie, but we don't get nearly enough of that. There's interesting ideas sprinkled throughout the film, but it never gels together to form a cohesive whole. The movie is occasionally very messy. The impact of the overall film is minimal- it's the kind of movie you shrug at, not the kind that really sticks with you. This one will sting for a long time, because there was such promise from the outset.

Now, while X-Men: Apocalypse has major issues, it wasn't all bad. The cast as a whole is stellar (at least talent-wise), so it's great fun seeing so many talented actors together. I liked the casting of the younger, more familiar X-Men. If this franchise continued with the new Cyclops, Jean, and Nightcrawler, I'd be interested in seeing that. Some of the best scenes of the film involve Magneto in hiding, starting over with a new family. Those scenes were somewhat irrelevant to the overall film (serving only to explain why Magneto would become a Horseman), but they were powerful, effective moments. It was genuinely fun seeing these characters again. Shockingly, this is the 9th film in the franchise (the 6th if you look at just the ensemble X-Men team). That's a big achievement. I'd still consider this movie good- Bryan Singer knows enough about this franchise and these characters to create compelling sequences. Unfortunately, in the broader X-Men universe, I'd consider this the worst film in the franchise. That's crushingly disappointing. I'm not sure where the main franchise goes from here, honestly.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 7



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: X-Men, X2: X-Men United, X-Men: The Last Stand, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, X-Men: First Class, The Wolverine, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Deadpool