"foX-Men" Re-Watch: X-Men: Apocalypse

 X-Men Apocalypse

I have two really clear memories of the movie "X-Men: Apocalypse" and neither really have anything to do with the contents of the film. I remember a couple of months before the movie released there was an "Entertainment Weekly" cover story where you got your first good look at Apocalypse and in the photo he was definitely giving Ivan Ooze vibes from the first "Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers" movie. Then, when the movie was released there was a prominent billboard in Los Angeles and New York that featured Apocalypse choking Mystique. It was an odd choice and there was understandable outrage over it. I included the picture in the body of this post.

Principal photography on "X-Men: Apocalypse" began in April 2015 and ended in August 2015. The film stars James McAvoy as Charles Xavier, Michael Fassbender as Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto, Jennifer Lawrence as Raven/Mystique, Nicholas Hoult as Hank McCoy/Beast, Oscar Isaac as En Sabah Nur/Apocalypse, Rose Byrne as Moira MacTaggart, Evan Peters as Peter Maximoff/Quicksilver, Josh Helman as Col. William Stryker, Sophie Turner as Jean Grey, Tye Sheridan as Scott Summers/Cyclops, Lucas Till as Alex Summers/Havok, Kodi Smitt-McPhee as Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler, Ben Hardy as Angel, Alexandra Shipp as Ororo Munroe/Storm, Olivia Munn as Psylocke, Lana Condor as Jubilee and Carolina Bartczak as Magda. The film was written by Simon Kinberg. It was directed by Bryan Singer. "X-Men: Apocalypse" premiered on May 27, 2016.

New band: Apocalypse and the Horsemen

I'm going to be completely honest here. I am almost positive that I haven't seen this movie since I saw it in theaters. I remember it being very polarizing amongst fans and reviewers. I think I liked it OK, so re-watching this was kind of an experience. 

The opening is pretty cool. It's in 3600 B.C. and the powerful mutant En Sabah Nur rules all of Egypt. It's a thrilling opening and if you are a comics fan then there is a lot here for you. We get to see the classic iterations of the Four Horseman: Pestilence, Famine, War and Death. The key to Apocalypse's longevity is the transference of his mind into another body. In the past, he is transfers into the body of a mutant who has a healing power. I feel like the moral of a lot of mutant stories is don't be born with a healing factor. If you are, you are basically fucked or doomed to be experimented on. It seems like it would be a great mutant power but time and again it is proven to be pretty terrible.

It's 1983. Ten years have passed since the events of "Days of Future Past" and because of her actions Mystique is seen as a hero. They even teach about her in schools. She's an icon to a generation of mutants who gained their powers after this now seminal event in history. That means there's a lot more of Jennifer Lawrence and her take on Mystique in this movie. I am a big fan of J. Law, but I feel like this is her weakest turn yet as Mystique. She appears in Mystique's blue form the least out of all her appearances so far, because Lawrence hated the make up job. The screenplay addresses this by saying that Mystique is uncomfortable with all this hero worship so she stays in her more human looking form. I'm not sure if I really buy that. I don't think the script does enough to justify this.

This is Apocalypse.

Oscar Isaac plays Apocalypse and I just want to say I love Oscar Isaac and I think he really excels at these genre parts. He is fantastic as Poe Dameron in the new "Star Wars" movies. I can't wait to see him play Moon Knight in the MCU. All this is my way of saying that I don't think it's his fault that Apocalypse is one of the weakest things about this movie. I just don't think that Kinberg really grasps the character of Apocalypse at all. Apocalypse firmly believes in mutant supremacy. Even more than Magneto. His motivations here are super muddled. His powers don't make a lot of sense. You don't get a great grasp on why these four mutants are so quick to follow him aside from him giving them all a pretty crazy power up. It sort of made me think about Thanos. Thanos is this seeming mad Titan who wants to wipe out half the population but you get it. I still couldn't tell you why Apocalypse is doing what he's doing. That being said, the make up doesn't look nearly as bad in the movie as it did in photographs. So that's something.

Magneto gets a kind of shitty storyline here. Post DoFP, Erik has gone into hiding. He's working in a factory in Poland. He has a wife and daughter, who is a mutant and can speak to animals. Everything seems like it's going great. You know it won't last. In fact, as soon as you see that wife and daughter, you know they are destined to die. And they do. When Apocalypse causes an earthquake, Magneto saves a co-worker from being crushed.  A couple of people see it and the jig is then up. The police confront Erik and his family. His daughter, Nina, freaks out, calling birds to swoop down and attack the police. They are armed with bows and arrows because you know, no metal. One accidentally shoots one and the arrow goes through Nina and Magda. It's meant to be the ultimate trauma. To show that, no matter what, Magneto is destined for grief and pain at the hands of humanity. It's also tired, cliché, maddening. It's one of the worst tropes out there. It's a cheap ploy and I expect more here. It's my least favorite part of the movie as a whole.

This would make a great billboard, right?

We get new versions of some of our favorite characters. Tye Sheridan's Cyclops is a dick, which tracks. As a kid, he's just a dick who gets in trouble a lot and is an asshole for no reason. He evolves into a bossy dick as he gets older. Scott is such a Whitbread character that I feel like he's difficult for anyone to really bring anything new or interesting too. Sheridan does fine, but he's not the most interesting. Kodi Smit-McPhee is super charming as a young Kurt Wagner. 

The new Horseman are probably the most vaguely defined and sketched out of the new characters. Ben Hardy's Angel is taciturn. He barely speaks. You don't know if this is Warren Worthington or just someone very similar. No one knows what his deal is but hey we finally get to see an Angel with metal wings so that's cool, right? Olivia Munn is Pyslocke and she acquits herself well. Again, not a lot of dialogue or development, but her psychic sword looks dope. The biggest letdown is Alexandra Shipp's Storm. It starts out pretty well. She's stealing in Cairo and gets caught. Apocalypse shows up and takes down the humans threatening her. For one of the most popular X-Men, she's criminally underused and it is a bad choice to make her a Horseman. It's really too bad.

Out of all the new characters that are introduced it's Sophie Turner's Jean Grey that makes the biggest impact. I remember that I wasn't a huge fan of the casting initially. My only really exposure to her up to that point had been her role as Sansa and the last thing I wanted was Sansa energy being brought to the role of my favorite X-Man. But, Turner is perfect as Jean. She is kind of an outcast at the school because her powers are slightly out of control. She saves the day at the end by manifesting a very familiar firebird. Honestly, if they decided to re-cast Turner as Jean in the MCU, I'd be fine with that.

The action in the movie is pretty great. Evan Peters' Quicksilver gets another slo-mo scene. This time it's when the mansion is exploding and he is saving everyone. Yes, it is a blatant rip off of the similar scene in DoFP. Yes, it's pretty shameless. But it is still pretty great. Set to "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" by Eurythmics and it's a treat to watch him toss kids out of windows, speed eat pizza, save a bull dog. I loved it. 

There is also the trip to the Weapon X facility. Up front, it feels really odd to have it placed in the movie. It is clear that it was just a ploy to get Hugh Jackman's Wolverine in this movie. We really hand't seen him in his classic Weapon X gear going crazy and so why not give the fans that. And while it is weird, it's still pretty awesome. No one doesn't love seeing Weapon X in a berserker fury and he meets Jean for the first time and she is the reason why he gets part of his memory back. It's a neat retcon that works.

The final action set piece of the movie has it's great moments. Psylocke slicing through cars. Storm and Cyclops going one on one with his optic blasts and her lightning. Jean going phoenix for the first time. It does go on a little long and I wasn't thrilled with Charles and Apocalypse's big fight inside his psyche. Charles just isn't badass enough for all that. But we do find out that he lost his hair fighting against Apocalypse's transference. 

At the end of the movie, Mystique is back in the fold and training the next generation. They get some semi comics accurate costumes for the first time and it is sad that we don't see them again. The post credits scene is people from the Essex Corporation stealing some of Logan's blood. 

Next up, Wolverine has his final hurrah with the R rated "Logan."

What do you all think? What camp do you fall into? Love this movie? Hate it? Indifferent? Let me know in the comments.