X-Men: Apocalypse - Movie Review
The following is a SPOILER FREE review. I felt compelled to throw that out there, just for spite. Plus, we’re on the Internet… You know how it can be, especially for movies like these. Also, don’t buy everything you hear from the critics because personally, I think they’re pretty off on this one. You’re in good hands here, this is a safe space so fear not. With that said, let’s get right into Apocalypse.
X-Men: Apocalypse is directed by Bryan Singer and is the ninth installment in the X-Men movie franchise. Or the third if you’re just counting the new ones starting with First Class (2008). As our good friend, Deadpool would say “these timelines are so confusing”. Nonetheless, I’ve been really digging this new prequel reboot timeline stuff so I was very much looking forward to seeing this next chapter. This movie stars the ensemble cast of James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, and Oscar Isaac as well as a couple of newcomers playing old timers. New timeline business, don’t worry about it.
Now for a movie that has the word, “Apocalypse” in the title, you probably have a good idea what’s gonna happen. In the time period of 3600 BC in Ancient Egypt, En Sabah Nur AKA Apocalypse played by Oscar Isaac is believed to be the world’s first ever mutant. He’s been asleep for many years, and now he has awoken. He wants to basically restart the whole world and take it over along with his team, the Four Horsemen. In short, he’s gonna tear shit up and the X-Men need to once again come together to put a stop to him.
This movie is kind of a mixed bag for me. Some things really worked well, some things left me confused and a little disconnected. Let’s start with what’s good, what I dug about this film.
Michael Fassbender… Once again, this guy is amazing. Fassbender as Magneto in this movie gave such chills, this guy’s acting chops are top notch. There’s one scene in particular in this movie where his skills are showcased and man, it’s really freaking good. Michael Fassbender is one of my favorite actors today and continues to prove that here.
James McAvoy is once again great as Charles Xavier/ Professor X, a very delightful and strong performance from McAvoy here. In addition, all of the new young actors playing the characters that we’ve come to know in the past X-Men of the early 2000s, we’re also good. The new Cyclops and Jean Grey played by Tye Sheridan and Sophie Turner were also good additions to this film, and both had a solid reintroduction to the franchise. I loved the new Nightcrawler played by Kodi Smit-McPhee, he was a good source for comic relief every now and then.
And real quick side note: Wolverine is in this movie. He’s not in it for a very long time, but just enough and it’s great. Very solid tease for Hugh Jackman’s new solo Wolverine movie in 2017.
Evan Peters as Quicksilver has a much more prominent role in this movie than he did in X-Men: DOFP, which is so awesome. They nailed the character of Quicksilver once again here, Evan Peters continues to impress. I had my doubts that they weren’t going to top his amazing kitchen sequence from the last movie, oh but they definitely did. They topped it so well, and man it’s amazing. I basically had a stupid grin for the duration of this scene, it’s that good. Sweet Dreams, that is all.
Now let’s touch on the things that didn’t work the best for me, the mixed bag portion. For the first hour or so of this movie, I felt myself not really caring about anything that was happening on screen. In my opinion, the movie had me with very little interest the first hour. Nothing was shown to me in the first hour that told me, "this is gonna be a great film." It just felt a little slow, pacing wise.
Also there’s been a lot of talk in the last month that Jennifer Lawrence wasn’t very committed to her role as Mystique. In other words, she was “phoning it in”. In my opinion, I don’t think she was phoning it in, however I do think her performance in this movie felt kind of flat. Some of her line deliveries didn’t work or hit very well. Was it a terrible performance? No, but from someone like Jennifer Lawrence, I expected better.
Now for the big bad of this film, Apocalypse. Oscar Issac is a tremendous actor in this own right, liked him way before Force Awakens and Ex Machina. His portrayal of Apocalypse in this film is good for the most part. At first, I didn’t find him that scary or menacing. But thankfully, that changed later by the third act where shit picked up. Towards the end was where this villain shined the most. He wasn’t the best villain because his motivations are somewhat muddled, but he was a solid obstacle for the X-Men to overcome. Nothing more, nothing less.
As far as nitpicks go, I just had a few that I won’t go into great detail here. But the biggest had to be the squandering of the Four Horsemen arc, how they were brought together and what they did exactly. With the exception of Magneto, they were just there because the plot needed them to there.
Basically, Olivia Munn looks good in this movie and I wish she was my girlfriend at times, but that’s about it. There wasn’t much to her, she had a couple of lines, she had some pretty cool action scenes and that’s it.
So all in all, I’m going to give X-Men: Apocalypse a solid “B” on my movie grading scale. Is this movie as bad as the critics are making it out to bad? No, not at all. 48% on Rotten Tomatoes? Come on. This was still a very solid installment into the X-Men universe. Is it as good as it’s predecessors, First Class and Days of Future Past? No, but you can still have an enjoyable time watching this movie. Bryan Singer has yet to give us a bad X-Men movie. (I’m looking at you, Brett Ratner.) Some of the acting and plot choices are less to be desired, but for me, it didn’t detract me that much from the story and characters. You can still have a good time with this film and you won’t hate yourself for spending two and half hours to watch it.
As always, thanks so much for reading and make sure to stay posted to Frank’s Takes for more reviews. Until next time, keep it 100.
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