EVERYTHING THEY BUILT WILL FALL…BUT NOT YET
X-Men: Apocalypse
Review by Paul Preston
Ah, screw it. I enjoyed this movie.
Going into X-Men: Apocalypse, I couldn’t help but have the nagging negativity of the critical base floating around somewhere in my subconscious, to where I was waiting and waiting for this movie to totally fly off the rails. It got BIG, perhaps too big, but it never got out of director Bryan Singer’s control, and if you’re like me and haven’t missed one of these movies, you’ll find a visit to the mutant world of The Uncanny X-Men is always a unique one.
The last entry of Professor X’s flock was X-Men: Days of Future Past, which continued the adventures of the cast of X-Men: First Class, as they meet up with Wolverine, who has traveled back in time from present day to prevent an assassination. This film was very, very good, but throws a huge can of worms into the plotting of the franchise, resetting timelines and creating alternate ones. For example, Nightcrawler debuts in Apocalypse, but we already met him in X2: X-Men United in 2003 (made in the past, but takes place in Apocalypse’s future), but it doesn’t really matter because that timeline of the first three films is thrown out the window by resetting it in Days of Future Past. They mostly make sense of all this, but you can probably see how following it all isn’t quite as easy as superheroes have it in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, where the only timehop was Captain America’s, and most of the plot is forward progression.
Throughout all nine X-Men universe films, my favorite character is and will probably continue to be Magneto. In Apocalypse, he is again played by Michael Fassbender, as this film takes place in the 1980s, as the early team of mutants is growing and still rallying for acceptance in a human world that’s afraid of them and their power. This storyline is told with the most gravitas when it involves Magneto, who we already know was torn from his parents at Auschwitz, went on a Nazi-hunting killing spree, splits with his friend Charles Xavier over conflicting views of how mutants and humans can live together and tried to kill the President. Could anything more intense happen to this guy? Oh, yes. Magneto is left as the most wanted man in the world after attempting to kill Nixon (just go with them on this) and his flushing back out into the public is the stuff of high drama, pulled off exceptionally by Fassbender and delivered smoothly by Singer.
It should be noted that Singer doesn’t pull off everything smoothly. In this film, he’s in love with a swooping camera move that goes in and out of crevices that a real camera couldn’t, but the effect isn’t special. Then he turns around and devises another show-stealing rescue scene for Quicksilver (Evan Peters) that is pure gold. He’s a little more inconsistent here than in Days of Future Past.
Magneto is coerced out of hiding by Apocalypse, regarded as the first-ever mutant, who has completed a centuries-long slumber and is amassing a team (a “four horsemen”) to assist his overtaking of the world, cleansing it of humans. Who will join him and who will fight against him is anyone’s guess as the timeline’s been reset and any preconceived notions about the characters can legitimately be scrapped (gotta admit I loved how Magneto’s character was left at the end of the film).
The First Class cast continues to be my favorite and James McAvoy, Nicholas Hoult and Fassbender are in fine display here, but Jennifer Lawrence looks a bit like she’s contractually obligated to be in the film. Then again, Raven doesn’t seem to be too happy to be back at Xavier’s, so maybe it’s the part playing the actor? New recruits include Sophie Turner, who deftly handles the emotional complexity of Jean Grey and Alexandra Shipp as a new take on the formerly heroic Storm. Olivia Munn looks absolutely lights-out gorgeous as Psylocke, but somehow doesn’t always look comfortable as a superhero. Like she’s posing as one instead of owning it?
A welcome return is Rose Byrne as ambitious CIA agent Moira MacTaggert, who previously had her memories of the X-Men erased. Her “reuniting” with Xavier is one of the film’s more surprising emotional moments. Oscar Isaac does a decent job as Apocalypse, who has seemingly insurmountable power, but spends much time pontificating. He’s such an energetic actor, it was a shame to see him encumbered by an overwhelming costume and makeup job.
I said the film gets “BIG” at the end. True, when you’re plotting the end of the world, events can get cataclysmic. In the movies, that usually means a bunch of CGI “stuff” spins and twirls around everyday sights like bridges and buildings fall victim to computer destruction. Also true, but in the middle of those messy visuals, the fimmakers find unique ways for the mutants to combat each other and they ultimately are a fantastic team.
There’s so much going on here, I never mentioned the great and shockingly violent cameo, where the humor works and the post-credits sequence – Singer and company pack a lot into this movie. But for me, as long as Magneto’s around, this franchise will always have me watching.
Directed by: Bryan Singer
Release Date: May 27, 2016
Run Time: 144 Minutes
Country: USA
Rated: R
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
