X-Men: Apocalypse is a story meant to bridge the gap between the previous generation of characters fans have been rooting for since 2011’s First Class, and the mutants they came to know from the first Bryan Singer films in the early aughts. Because of that, Apocalypse has quite a lot to of ground to cover, and a lot of characters to juggle.
Does the film manage that circus act? Um… very yes and very no.
The real problem with Apocalypse is that it feels like two separate films. The first half is a sloppy mess of bad cliches and disparate plots that don’t hang together whatsoever. But somehow the film manages to pull everything together at the end and become the film that it’s trying to be. The result is jarring on both an emotional and a cognitive level.
SPOILERS Ahead.
So let’s start with the bad, and get it out of the way. Apocalypse is our super bad, a god-like mutant from ancient history that got buried by the ancient Egyptians. (And the film does deserve some credit for showing just how ingeniously complex Egyptian architecture was and could be.) The opening sequence is overlong and needlessly action heavy, and it’s deeply saddening to watch Oscar Isaac disappear behind all those prosthetics; even if he does manage to act his pants off through them as a character who has all the subtlety of a bulldozer, it’s hard to forget that Poe Dameron is under there somewhere, desperate to free his tousled locks.
Fastforward to 1983 and we find that the world has moved on since the events of Days of Future Past, largely for the better. Charles Xavier has his school, Mystique is spending her time finding and protecting wayward mutants being abused by regular humans, and Erik Lensherr has managed to find himself a family in Poland, a wife and daughter whom he loves deeply.
If all the bells went off in your head at the mention of Erik having a family, you win a prize for Spot the Film Cliche. It is obvious from the outset that Erik isn’t going to be able to keep this family, which means we’re in store for a good old-fashioned fridging of female characters, with extra points for them being related to the male character who gets to experience a lot of manpain over their passing. It’s upsetting because while Magneto does need to experience painful loss in order for his part in the plot to work, it honestly didn’t have to be a family. The film could have just as easily set him up with a group of mutants he was protecting in Poland, and had them get discovered. Making it a wife and child smacks of the laziest storytelling possible, the placeholder suggestion at the initial script meeting that no one remembered to change. It’s almost hard to be angry about the choice because it’s so insipidly boring in the first place.
But then you remember two women who were barely characters have just been needlessly murdered in yet another movie to move forward some guy’s plot, and you summon up some anger all the same.
Sigh. Let’s move on to Moira MacTaggert, who is around for Apocalypse’s resurrection. It results in an earthquake felt halfway around the world, which gets the attention of Hank McCoy, and then Charles. He uses Cerebro to find out what’s going on, and sees that Moira’s at the heart of it, and his crush rears its wily head. Of course, he has to admit to Hank that Moira doesn’t remember him because he wiped all her memories of their time together in First Class (something that every character is appropriately and quietly disdainful of when they find out). So they head to the CIA and find out about Apocalypse, and the supposed four followers that he has every time he rises.
The first follower this time around is Storm, who gets an imaginative new backstory as an Aladdin-esque street rat in Cairo who uses her powers to steal food and stuffs for herself and the wandering kids in her neighborhood. Edit: I should point out that I’m likening it to Aladdin as the difference jokingly, since her comics origin is a bit more akin to Oliver Twist. Apocalypse likes her and helps her magnify her powers. (He also turns her hair white because he’s super into fashions. There is literally no other reason.) This results in Apocalypse’s World Tour, where he picks up three more disciples and gives them cool new duds, extra juice for their abilities, and lots of aesthetic tweaking. For serious. He cuts Angel’s hair to be more like Storm’s, and then gives him weird face tattoos. Everyone gets fabulous full body armor, except for Psylocke, who is unexplainably still wearing her typical cut-out swimsuit.
I’m just saying, some consistency would have made more sense, regardless of the popularity of her costume.
We also meet some our of favorite characters as teens! Including Scott Summers, who has been reimagined as Youthful Punk Scott Summers (Tye Sheridan), I guess in an effort to make him seem like less of a good ol’ boy? (It doesn’t work.) Jean Grey is well adapted by Sophie Turner, and Kodi Smit-McPhee is an adorable Nightcrawler, even if he really only exists in this film for his ability to teleport people and gets no meaningful character work whatsoever. Jubilee is not in the film nearly enough, which is perhaps more upsetting. We thought we were getting Jubilee, movie! Uncool. (It seems as though there’s an obvious deleted sequence at the nearby shopping mall to that tune.)
Quicksilver (Evan Peters) is back to prove that he is by far the better alt-universe incarnation than the one we saw in Avengers: Age of Ultron. He also comes with the revelation that he’s Magneto’s kid (true in the comics also). Seriously, if they wanted to give this guy his own movie, I’d be 110% for that. He’s one of the bright spots of the film, no contest.
So after an hour of The Gang’s All Here, we finally get to the plot, and Charles gets kidnapped by Apocalypse. (Also poor Alex Summers dies to give Scott something to be sad about and Jean a reason to look at him twice.) A bunch of the important mutants plus Moira are kidnapped by none other than William Stryker and we get another ride to his creepy dam base again. Also, the school gets blown up, making Negasonic’s quip about it in Deadpool that much funnier.
Raven is at the heart of the film, a hero to all the kid mutants who still prefers to stick to the shadows because while Charles is keen to help kids control their powers and blend in with humanity, she is aware that the effort can simply be another brand of hiding. And she is hiding, to tell the truth, knowing that the results of 1973 did not bring peace at all. It would all be more interesting as a plot point if the film dealt with this recent history in more depth rather than wasting time with Apocalypse because it’s the better part of the story and, not coincidentally, more of what X-Men is meant to be about.
We get a cameo from Wolverine, which is basically meant to set up his first movie, and also explain why he had hints of memories in the first X film that he can’t piece together. It’s fine for Jackman fans, but does add one more unneeded element to a crowded movie. Once Jean, Scott, and Kurt spring the adults plus Quicksilver, the movie finally begins to coalesce into what it wants to be: a film about trust and love and the very nature of found families, which is something that X-Men is expertly set up to tackle.
Apocalypse wants to use Charles’ body for his next upgrade to get his powers (of course), so the crew set out to Cairo on a rescue mission. Raven gives the kids a pep talk, harkening back to the good old days when she had a team and family (even though said team and family wasn’t very good at allowing her to be herself), and first went into battle on a beach in Cuba. She tells Scott about Alex, and assures the group that it’s cool to be scared and also cool to use their powers, whether or not they can control them. Erik is busy destroying the earth slowly with his amplified powers, unwilling to shake off his pain fugue until Mystique and Quicksilver show up. They don’t play the cheap card of having Peter be all I’M UR SON MISTER, instead opting to prove that Raven is the only one who gets this whole shebang at all; yes Erik is in pain, but he still has family and it’s all right here and it needs him. He let’s that sink in for a bit (while pointedly flashing back to Charles talking about how much they need him and stuff).
The transfer from Apocalypse to Charles nearly goes through, leaving them with an unfortunate link that Biggest Blue uses to abuse the professor while everyone else stands around telling Xavier that he can’t interfere or else the bad guy will take over the whole planet. Apocalypse nearly chokes Raven to death before Charles realizes that a link between minds goes both ways. On the one hand, this is a silly and somewhat obvious set up, on the other hand, it might have been worth it for when Charles’ brainspace avatar creates a simulacrum of the school in their heads, then roundhouse punches an earth-threatening villain while shouting YOU’RE IN MY HOUSE.
No? Just me?
Eventually Xavier starts losing that fight, and that’s when Erik finally stops twiddling his thumbs destroying the earth and takes a stand against the bad guy because he’s didn’t care so much when Raven’s life was on the line but don’t you dare touch Charles Xavier, dearly best frenemy, other half of his coin, and occasional lover. At least some things are consistent in this universe.
While this is all going on, the kids are learning to work as a team and not hold back with their abilities. (Storm is also understandably having a change of heart, seeing how casually Apocalypse casts aside his other children if they’re not up to snuff—Angel is dead.) All except for Jean, that is, who is understandably terrified to use her very substantial powers that she has been warned against time and again. But everyone working together can’t stop the guy, so Charles begs for Jean’s help, recognizing that Raven has been right all along: Sometimes control is overrated, and the powers these children wield are beautiful and needed. So he tells Jean to let go and nail the guy.
Which she does in spectacular Phoenix-like fashion. It’s obviously the best part of the movie.
At that point Charles opens his eyes to find Moira lingering over him, and realizes that he was a real jerk twenty years ago. He gives her memories back. And it is so vindicating to see the film make good on the biggest mistake two films previous, though we miss the obvious fallout where Moira probably threatens to keep him in a secret CIA bunker for the next twenty years as recompense for doing something that unethical and awful. Storm makes some new friends, Psylocke runs off in a tiff (because she is the most boring character in the entire film aside from Angel), and everyone wonders what comes next.
The answer, of course, is for Erik and Jean to rebuild the school, classes to resume and Charles to give Raven room under the house to reform the X-Men, under her tutelage. Which is honestly an awesome idea if the movies going forward stick to that—Raven deserves to be the head of this group far more than either Charles or Erik, and understands the need for the X-Men better as far as these films are concerned. If they keep with this setup, we could end up with a pretty awesome spin on the universe.
But it still doesn’t really make up for the first half of the film, which has plenty of cute laugh lines/scenes (like Charles losing a beloved childhood tree to Scott’s super eyes, and Quicksilver rescuing the entire student body from the house explosion), and is otherwise muddy mess full of poor choices. A good ending can help you forget a bad beginning, but here it isn’t really enough of it. If they had spent more time sticking to the individual perspectives of the protagonists and built up the differing philosophies between them, we would have had a great movie. Instead, we just have a weird wasted big bad, who manages with his final breath to acknowledge that maybe Jean Grey’s Dark Phoenix persona could be a problem going forward? And a whole lot of set up for things that will happen in other movies.
It’s cute, but not cohesive, which so important in a film series that has already gotten flack for being confusing as far as timelines are concerned. Unfortunately, in the places where it needed to shine the most, X-Men: Apocalypse didn’t quite make it to the finish line. It just sort of… teleported there instead.
Emmet Asher-Perrin really did love that bit with the tree, though. You can bug her on Twitterand Tumblr, and read more of her work here and elsewhere.
Storm’s backstory of being a Cairo street rat is hardly new; it was established decades ago in the comics. Although she didn’t have a history with Apocalypse there.
As for Quicksilver’s relationship to Magneto being true in the comics… well, it’s gone back and forth between false and true at least two and a half times. The current retcon has put it back to being false — they were given powers through genetic experiments like in Age of Ultron, then passed off as mutants.
My question (please don’t kill me for it) revolves around the fridging. Is it the fridging itself that is the problem or what it represents in regards to female characters. Can this film (or any film with similar circumstances) make up for fridging Magneto’s family by giving its other female characters agency and essentially doing the same thing with Scott’s brother?
Do they show how the Egyptians got rid of him, if he is so all-fired powerful? Or did he just feel like taking a very long nap?
@Ad – Yes, the film absolutely shows how the Egyptians got rid of him, and it was pretty cool.
@Perene – But it’s not the same with Scott’s brother. Alex was a character of import in the two prior films, who had his own story and journey and powers. He contributed to both of those films as a heroic figure, and did the same in this film. Making a choice to have a known character die is not the same as creating two female characters out of thin air for the sole purpose of murdering them. That’s what makes it a fridging, and that’s what makes it lazy and insulting. Alex didn’t come out of nowhere, he already had a part in these proceedings. Erik’s family was created just to make him sad when they died.
Interesting review – another reviewer (at Screenjunkies) had about the same overall reaction (if maybe a little more unfavorable) but switched around his favorite parts. He enjoyed the first 45 minutes a lot, and felt the ending was too formulaic and played out.
For me, I enjoyed the movie, but I went in with low expectations. Psylocke (Kwannon?) may as well not have even been called by name or worn the signature outfit. Realistically they could have replaced her with the villainess from Deadpool and it would have seemed the same. At least they could have had HER being the one who was protecting the rest of the Horsemen from Professor X’s telepathy. The uninitiated moviegoer could very easily assume that Pyslocke’s mutant power was “shoots a laser sword/whip from her left hand” and that’s it.
The Phoenix-ex-machina at the end was…I dunno, fine. Good, maybe? I mean the scene itself was well done. And the way they linked what she did to Apocalypse with the ending of X3: the Last Stand was good.
I especially enjoyed the last conversation between the professor and Erik, where they recite the same lines that Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen did in the first movie.
The Quicksilver scene was fun – more of the same, but bigger. I heard some people complaining that the tone of it was wrong considering that the mansion was blowing up and Alex died, but I don’t agree. The mansion blowing up isn’t something you mourn in a comic book movie – you know it’ll be rebuilt by the next movie, so meh. As for Alex dying, I think that was the point – you’re having so much fun with Quicksilver saving everyone and being funny while doing it and all that – then it hits you that Quicksilver never had a chance to save Alex – he was killed instantly before QS even knew something was wrong.
The Weapon X scene did not excite me as much as it did some. I know some folks were very much “Yay, a berserker-rage Wolverine scene!” but for me, I just kept thinking “Why do these guys continue shooting their ineffectual guns at him instead of trying to run?”
We get a cameo from Wolverine, which is basically meant to set up his first movie, and also explain why he had hints of memories in the first X film that he can’t piece together.
That makes no sense. The events of Days of Future Past have pretty much rewritten history as we know it. Whatever happens to Wolverine, we know he’ll end up a part of the X-Men in the future, but the two previous solo movies are pretty much retconned out of existence. Only the upcoming 2017 film applies.
And any events regarding the original X-Men trilogy are also out, or at the very least events happened quite differently. Case in point, Jean and Cyclops both being alive at the end of Future Past.
The Wolverine we see in this film is a very relevant one. He wasn’t himself throughout DOFP, since 2023 Wolverine took over his mind for the whole story. 1973 Logan was asleep at the wheel and when he woke up, he was submerged in the Potomac stuck to concrete slab, thanks to Magneto’s brutal attack, and heaven knows how much pain he was in. Then he gets caught by the military and placed in Stryker’s secret base, being probed and tested for 10 years, as well as suffering a nasty adamantium transfusion.
Forget the 2009 film. This version of Logan had it much worse, since he didn’t even know how he came to be suffering that fate. No wonder he can’t remember anything until Jean calms his mind.
As one who is only familiar with the on-screen version of the X-Men, what are Psylocke’s powers? It looked like she was a bodyguard with a fancy lightsaber/ lightwhip? I know there must be more to her than that, and I’m assuming some kind of mental powers because of the “Psy” at the beginning of her name?
One thing that took me out of the movie a bit was wondering how long it took her to squeeze into her costume. Did she need assistance? Vaseline? But overall I thought it was too bad that they hyped the 4 horse…people? and then really only gave time to Magneto.
So many characters, so little time, so many plot holes. I enjoyed the movie, but I wanted it to be more than it was. I wanted to care for the characters than I actually cared for the characters.
@8/hdvane: Psylocke was originally a telepath and a precognitive, but then they changed her powers to telekinesis (I’m simplifying enormously). She has a “psychic knife” that she routinely described in the comics as “the focused totality of my psychic powers,” since X-Men comics tended to have quite a lot of characters explaining how their powers worked while they used them. There was also this short period where she had the power to teleport through shadows or something, but it was quickly dropped.
Gotta say, the part of the film that bugged me most was how everybody just shrugs off the massive levels of destruction that Magneto caused while he was working for Apocalypse.Seriously, how many people did he kill?
My feelings were … complicated. On the one hand, it’s set in 1983, which is when I was actually reading X-Men comics, and they were good! And the Bryan Singer period piece movies do tend to have more than their share of period detail (including, but not limited to, Mystique’s hair and Quicksilver’s, well, entire room). On the other hand, while a lot of the individual pieces were quite good, they didn’t seem to really cohere as well as they should have. And I agree with Trajan23 above — the destruction Magneto was wreaking is not the sort of thing that’s going to be just shrugged off after the fact.
Still, while it was probably the least of the Bryan Singer X-films, that still puts it head and shoulders above anybody else’s X-films.
The film’s rather mixed on that point — we have things that are different, but we also have bits that seem to say that characters wouldn’t have got into their original-trilogy positions unless things played out just as they did.
One confusing bit about Wolverine/Weapon X. At the end of DoFP, Mystique has taken custody of Logan (while shapeshifted into William Stryker).
So ten years later, somehow the real Stryker caught him and experimented on him, giving him his adamantium skeleton.
I mean, I guess Stryker could have got him at any point in the 10 years between films, but then why give us that little bit at the end of Days of Future Past that made it seem like Logan had averted that?
Meh.
@9ChristopherLBennett: thanks! Too bad she didn’t get to use those other powers… though I guess they thought they were a little crammed full of telepathic/ telekinetic powers.
It was definitely a flawed movie — it’s almost shocking that Fox got someone as talented as Oscar Isaac for the villain and then didn’t give him any real material to work with — but there’s a lot to like about the movie, too.
For starters, Sophie Turner was wonderful as Jean Grey and — minus a few silly parts at the end — I really loved the way the script made her powers ‘work.’ The subtle utility of it is something Singer never showed us in Xs 1-3, so it was really nice to see it here.
It was a mess of a movie — and I’m getting really tired of ‘end of the world’ movies — but it was never flat-out boring, and had lots of great moments. If it had a tighter script, it could have been much better, but I’ll take an enjoyable popcorn movie over Batman vs Superman any day of the week.
@@@@@ 13: The thing about Wolverine being taken out of the Potomac by Mystique masquerading as Stryker is what confuses me too. I’m assuming that she was acting to save him in that scenario and that he later ended up joining the project on his own initiative anyway. After all, he would have had no idea that Stryker was a bad guy who was just going to make him suffer.
I enjoyed the movie overall but I found it incredibly uneven. Definitely better than BvS but that’s pretty easy to accomplish.
I really liked this movie – for reasons I can’t completely articulate and that are mostly subjective, I’ve found the X-Men franchise movies to be my favorite ‘superhero’ franchise movies. I do enjoy the MCU movies quite a bit (and the various Batman franchises – although I haven’t seen any DCU movies at all yet) and also enjoyed both Spider-Man franchises. But, I don’t know – something about the X-Men movies is just more colorful and fun and larger than life and for some reason it just works for me. Many years ago when I saw – I think – the second X-men movie I commented that in some ways, the movie was a bunch of various fun/awesome scenes strung together, and I was fine with that.
I’ve given up on trying to make sense of how these movies fit together in any way shape or form, and what events ‘actually’ happened, who these characters actually are now, etc. Each one almost forms their own little continuity in my head. I know that they are supposed to connect with the First Class/DoFP arc (and therefore in some loose way with the original X-Men movies, although how, I’m not exactly sure) but…eh. I just don’t think about it too much. And even though I am also rather sick of end of the world/large scale catasrophe movies (especially having watched this the day after Captain America: Civil War) I still feel like this one was a bit more fun. Maybe because it’s not taking itself quite as seriously? I mean, arguably, way more people died in this movie than in the previous…and yes, if there is a mark against it it’s that yet again (like Civil War) we’ve got two frenemies bringing their ideological differences and manpain onto the world stage to duke it out and leave massive destruction in their wake…although clearly Xavier wants no part in this, so really it’s just Magneto. Seriously Magneto, how many time are we supposed to give you a pass???
But speaking of Magneto, they could go some interesting places with him. I can tell that on one hand, they can’t resist making him a villain and he certainly has some baggage. I think his line about waking up and wondering when they are coming from you is definitely chilling given his past as a Holocaust survivor – that is definitely something that would be on his mind. But there’s only so far they can go to keep him sympathetic, and while I do always enjoy arcs about redemption or faith in the goodness of people (again, similar paralells to Cap here) and appreciate Xavier and Mystique trying to reach out to him…at what point is it time to let go? I’m truly not sure, but I suppose you could even say this of Return of the Jedi (man, in some ways they missed an opportunity to draw some paralells there too ;) ). Anyway, I do love a good redemption arc, so I’m still rooting for them. But I think the other thing that could be interesting would be to draw the paralell between what he went through as a Jewish boy and the type of ‘the strong rule’ order he is trying to put in place. Does the cognitive dissonance ever occur to him?
I knew as soon as Magneto had a family that there is no way this movie will let him stay happy. Interestingly enough, your comment about fridged women is something similar to what I thought about (and rolled my eyes at) but it was actually more in relation to the fridging of children, which I think is a similar/related thing – and perhaps as a parent of young children is one I notice a lot more often right now, and am more bothered by. However, also as a parent I can recognize that really nothing is more visceral and primal than that particular grief so I can see why they made that narrative choice even if it does also feel lazy (I guess in part BECAUSE it’s so visceral you don’t have to be super creative to think about it…). But I also thought it was interesting that in the end Quicksilver chooses not to tell him he’s his father – perhaps he’s realizing he doesn’t have to be tied to him or be like him and that he has other family he has made his own? This version of Quicksilver is definitely the best version. The mansion rescue scene was perfect. Perfect music, everything…
Also: NIGHTCRAWLER! :D He was my favorite of the original mutants, so I was really excited they brought him back and I think they did a good job with him. I just want to give him a hug, haha. Plus I’m glad they kept hints of his Catholicism. In general I really liked watching the interactions of the teen mutants and I wish we had gotten more of that. Maybe it’s just the 80s nostalgia factor, but those were some of the best parts of the movie. I really loved Cyclops and Jean Grey and what they did with the Dark Phoenix aspect. And I think even in their brief scenes together, I could see some chemistry there. I am definitely irked that Jubilee never got to DO anything with her powers; I like that she got to hang out with them, but I wish she had more to do. Still wish Gambit would show up somewhere (I really disliked the version from the Wolverine movie).
I don’t have strong feelings on Apocalypse (I laughed out loud and the line about knowing Poe Dameron is in there wanting to break free) – in some ways he was kind of bland, but he did deliver his lines/body language very well and in fact I kept getting a very Palpatine-esque air from him. Is it bad that I was hoping somebody would ask who talked first while he was in their head? And definitely agreed that Psylocke was really under-used and boring. Angel was a bit too, but to a lesser extent and he definitely wins the award for Most Metal Mutant. Seriously it’d be right at home in a hair-metal music video. Is he supposed to be the ‘same’ Angel that was in one of the other movies? I don’t remember how the ages mesh up… However, when she turned her lightsaber into a light-whip I thought IT’S LUMIYA! Some of her promotional material does show her in purple/with a purple whip. Who, incidentally was also introduced in Marvel comics! And hey, now that Marvel and Lucasfilm are all owned by Disney…let’s do an X-Men/Star Wars crossover. Storm at least got some interesting things to do.
Xavier wiping Moira’s mind in the previous movie was definitely an icky thing to do, and I am also glad it got called out/undone. Part of me hoping Moira would give him more grief for it though! I am not even sure how you can trust somebody if you know they’ve wiped your mind before – I would always wonder if they had done it again.
Still, I think the best part was when Xavier subverts Apocalypse’s message and tells those who have strength to take care of those who do not.
Regarding Wolverine’s cameo – I don’t love it or hate it – I got a chuckle out of it, because of course every X-Men movie has to be about Wolverine (it’s almost a gag at this point), but I think it does provide a somewhat interesting aspect to Jean/Wolverine’s relationship and may explain in some way his connection/attraction to her (although this also begs the question of if this love triangle even exists anymore seeing as how the first 3 X-men movies didn’t happen, but then again, this Logan is presumably from the future anyway? But then also wakes up in the future and sees Scott and Jean still alive? So honestly I odn’t even know which Wolverine this is – again, I have given up trying to make sense of this, and oh yeah, thanks to the person who brings up that in one of the ending scenes they make this big point of Mystique being the one to capture him instead of Stryker, so what the heck is the point of that anyway?).
@17 – Lisamarie: These are the same people that show up in the earlier X-Men films, including Angel, but the timeline has been changed, so it might have caused them to be born earlier. Cyclops is 17-18 here, and his actor in the 2000 X-Men (17 years later than the setting of this movie) was 27, Jean’s actress in the original movie is even older, and so on. Don’t give it much thought. :)
The Wolverine that shows up here is not from the future, that’s 1983 Wolverine, who has just undergone the Weapon X treatment and gotten the adamantium. And the love triangle can still happen in this timeline.