Sequel Month - Mini Review - X-men Apocalypse

Last year I did X-men month where I looked at all the X-men movies that had come out, except for this one, which hadn’t come out on DVD yet. I will get to Logan eventually, but know that it’s a great movie, so is Deadpool, but that is not the movie I’m here to talk about today. X-men Apocalypse came out in July of 2016 to a very mixed reception. It made $544 million on a $185m budget, this is not as good as Fox were hoping for, but enough to justify another sequel coming out next year.

X-men Apocalypse is probably one of the most heavily cluttered movies I’ve ever seen. It has all the old components Xavier, Magneto, Beast, and even Wolverine in his most pointless cameo to date are all there, Havok’s back after only having a minor role in the last one, Mystique is still a major presence, backing on the popularity of Jennifer Lawrence. Oh, and Moira from First Class is also back. But in addition to all those major players we have the following mutants.

Jean Grey

Cyclops

Storm

Quicksilver

Angel

Psylocke

Nightcrawler

Jubilee

Calliban

And of course Apocalypse

Think that’s a lot of characters to Balance? It is. It is, far far too many and the movie does an appalling job at character balance because of it. Xavier and Magneto once again get the bulk of the focus. Angel and his transformation to archangel, something which could sustain a movie on its own, is completely glanced over. Jubilee’s role is fortunately short. Jean Grey starts through exactly the same arc she had before. Cyclops never really gets time to grieve over his potentially dead brother. Havok just exists to be killed. Moira’s just a loose end from the last movie. Beast is there I guess, Nightcrawler is useful, but we find out very little about him. Psylocke is incredibly generic, Calliaban is thankfully better in Logan, I mentioned the pointlessness of Wolverine’s cameo and Mystique, well, she’s the most interesting in that they advertised a line from the very end of the movie to trick us into thinking it was the f*cking hunger games.

Oh, and Apocalypse is this movie too. It’s amazing how neutered he is honestly. It’s not that he isn’t powerful, though being a guy who is supposed to be a threat to the X-men in their prime, being defeated by the squad of not even yet X-men is kinda sad. He supposedly is a body jumper that gets the powers of every mutant he’s ever been in. He doesn’t command much presence, that whisper that his normal tongue is isn’t enough! Also, Quicksilver was kicking his ass at one point.

Speaking of Quicksilver. He came to find his dad but didn’t tell him, thus refusing hope to someone who recently lost all hope. World’s greatest son right there. And I know Magneto is hardly the world’s greatest dad either but still. The special effects with him are still great though.

Let’s talk about Magneto, he remains one of the more interesting characters in these movies. I’m very interested in seeing what becomes of him now his entire history has been altered thanks to Future Past, although was the repeat of the line from the original X-men really necessary. I actually quite liked him trying to live a quiet life and everything coming apart from good intentions. He really stops being interesting when becomes Apocalypse’s pawn though.

There’s very little of anything outside the main plot in this one, Mystique is the main character and in turn she’s the centrepiece of the plot, despite the fact we don’t see her Mystique form for considerable chunks of the movie. Guess Jennifer is tired of wearing makeup. The problem is well, there’s not much man vs mutant, despite the whole world’s nukes being launched being a plot point and given that that’s a centrepiece of an X-men movie and the fact the A-plot is generic and dull, it’s missed

This movie isn’t terrible, it’s mediocre, but after First Class and Days of Future Past, that’s a massive step down. It’s like they said in the movie, it’s always the third that’s the worst, unless it’s a Wolverine movie in which case it’s the best yet.

Rating 55/100