X-Men: Apocalypse Spoiler Free Review
It's the End of the World as we know it...
By Steven Carter
What better way to spend an overcast Sunday than go to the cinema to see a comic book movie eh? 10 years ago the Cinema scene in Wycombe was quite a vibrant one. Empire Cinema being the main hub for big screen entertainment. Sadly nowadays that era appears to be coming to an end. My wife and I attended a 3pm showing, I pre-booked our tickets anticipating huge crowds of people considering it was still the opening weekend. To our surprise there was hardly anyone there! After we were eventually allowed to enter halfway through the adverts and everyone had taken their seats, the room was barely a quarter full. Was this a sign of the end of this particular cinema? Had Speilberg hit the nail on the head and the superhero genre was dying? Or could it be down to the largely mixed reviews?
I was inclined to think it was the 3rd option. I had looked at the general feedback but did my best to avoid any in depth reviews so I could view this movie with a clean perspective.
Let's start with a major positive then; visually, this film is fantastic. The special effects team can really pat themselves on the back here. You are treated to some truly spectacular pieces from start to finish especially towards the end. I was particularly happy to see Cyclops’ optic blasts look much more like a concussive blast rather than some weird red laser that can seemingly penetrate anything. It was good to see the cast from the previous two outings back reprising their respective rolls as well as the new generation of mutants that will grow up to become the classic line up we all know and love. I was initially worried about the Casting of Jean Grey based on one of the trailers we saw with her doomsday dream but I can happily say that Sophie Turner’s acting was nowhere near as wooden as the trailer suggested! Special mentions go out to Evan Peters who nails it once again as Quicksilver, Tye Sheridan for making Cyclops an interesting character for the first time and Kodi Smit-McPhee for an entertaining performance as Nightcrawler.
Oscar Issac also puts in a chilling performance as the big bad in the film (not Ivan Ooze) Apocalypse while he'll surely come under criticism for a rather appauling make-up job and horrendous wardrobe selection, but the man who steals the show (at least the first half) is Michael Fassbender. He has an incredibly intense introduction in this film which I’ll openly admit had me very close to tears. The bar was set rather high with First Class and then Days of Future past. We saw a secret plot to establish a new world order using the cold war as a smoke screen, then a complex timeline altering film which allowed us to (thankfully) forget the events of X-Men 3 and the subsequently dire Solo Wolverine films. Nevertheless, This film takes a gutsy run at the hurdle but ultimately ends up tripping up and falling flat on its face.
The movie has a lot of stories and sub stories all going at once. This was always going to be the problem when you introduce so many new characters, particularly ones who are solid comic fan favourites and it ran a real risk of disappointing some of these fans. Unfortunately the casualties here are the four horsemen. Firstly Angel/Archangel. For me, they got the look right but that was about it. Considering he was one of the horsemen, he was remarkably underused, two dimensional and ultimately very disappointing. Psyloche I felt was there just to beef up the numbers. Again, the look was nailed but there was absolutely nothing interesting about the character. She had very little dialogue and to be honest, would have made no difference to the film if she wasn't there at all. Storm was slightly more interesting, and we get to see a more intriguing side to the use of her powers, but like all the other films, she ends up just another background character to use as a distraction. Finally Magneto. We see the best of his character in the first half but it seems like those writers then realised they needed to be elsewhere and hastily scribbled what happens to him in the second half. Once he is suited and booted and had one more spat with Xavier, he just becomes soooo dull despite all the destruction he is wreaking on the world!
All in all the look of the film was spot on. From special effects in action pieces right through to the costumes (with a possible exception to Xavier’s and Havok’s awful 80’s mullets…). Some awkward and clunky fighting aside in the final act Singer has delivered on action spectacle like never before.
Ultimately the plot just didn't feel as interesting or as articulate as the previous two films, it misses good opportunities to gain some new fans but it just seems like 20th Century Fox has once again underestimated just how popular some of these characters in its franchise really are. It certainly is a weird sensation to walk away from a film that had so much going on in it and yet still feel unsatisfied. I almost wish I bought tickets to see Civil War again just as a cure for that superhero itch!
Sadly I doubt this film will exactly bomb at the box office so all the negative critiques out there will fall on deaf ears under the jingling of money bags.
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