X-Men: Apocalypse Movie Review
Directed by: Bryan Singer
Written by: Simon Kinberg, Michael Dougherty, and Dan Harris
Staring: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, and Jennifer Lawrence
Music by: John Ottman
Cinematography by: Newton Thomas Sigel
Genre: Action, Adventure, and Fantasy
Release Date: May 27th, 2016
Rating: PG-13
At times I was on the edge of my seat in anticipation for the next thing to happen but at other times I wished I had the remote from Click so that I could get this movie over with. This is the ninth X-Men movie since 20th Century Fox obtained the rights to the franchise in 1994 and it is the second one this year (the first being Deadpool, which you can read my review of here).
Now if you are an average movie goer and you missed X-Men: Days of Future Past then consider yourself lucky since it is a source of continuity confusion and frustration for many. The simple explanation of the continuity is that in the current movie the only things that matter are X-Men: First Class and the flashbacks from X-Men: Days of Future Past.
This movie takes place ten years after Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender), a.k.a. Magneto, faced off with Xavier and his side in Washington D.C. in Days of Future Past. Professor Xavier's (James McAvoy) school has grown exponentially with the help of Hank McCoy (Nicholas Hoult) as part of his teaching staff.
This film starts off with Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac) awakening from his multi-millennium slumber and gathering four followers, his 'horsemen'. He finds a young Storm (Alexandra Shipp) and helps to chanel her power, which somehow changes her hair from black to the bleached white that you see in rest of the film.
Apocalypse and Storm then go to Caliban (Tómas Lemarquis), who gives mutants a new identity when they are on the run, to find more mutants. Psylocke joins them and since Caliban was uncooperative Psylocke led them to their next mutant, Angel (Ben Hardy).
Earlier in the movie Angel was part of an underground mutant fighting ring, where he had to fight Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee). After his escape, thanks to the efforts of Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), he has been in hiding with a broken wing. Once Apocalypse finds him (which isn't really explained, other than Psylocke saying 'I know where to find other mutants') he channels Angel's powers, making his wings metal and turning him into Archangel.
While all of this was happening Erik Lehnsherr had been living a normal life with a wife and ten year old daughter. But alas there was trouble in paradise, well as close to paradise that an international criminal mutant can get.
The Apocalypse quartet somehow is able to detect where Erik is and recruit him as the fourth horseman, which again is not very well explained.
During all of this Xaiver is introduced to Scott Summers (Tye Sheridan) by his brother and returning character Alex Summers (Lucas Till). Xavier, the Summers brothers, and McCoy have quite possibly the best exchange in the movie when Xavier first sees Scott power.
Let's start with the good with the film. My favorite thing about this film is Magneto. Magneto has a full arch where he is just trying to live a normal life, but then he returns to his villainous ways with justifiable motivation. He was the most consistent of all of the characters and had the most understandable reasoning behind his actions.
My other favorite character in this film was Quicksilver and just like X-Men: Days of Future Past you get his signature slow motion scene. While these are very cool scenes with many hilarious moments, the CGI looks out of place and two dimensional. Apocalypse also has this downside. His CGI, for a lack of a better term, was cartoon-ish and unrealistic.
My least favorite aspect of this film is that Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) was only used when relevant. She was on the sideline of the final fight (spoiler, but come on who couldn't see that coming?) until the very last second. Even though she could not completely control her powers she would have been a major asset with her telekinesis and other powers. Even Scott Summers had no control of his powers, but he still helped throughout the duration of the fight.
All things said and done I would give this movie a five on a one to ten scale.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
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