So, as seemingly the only person on this site to be open about seeing Apocalypse (Besides Mcny!) I felt I should give my opinion on the movie. Since the embargo's release yesterday, there has been a thoroughly mixed bag of reviews. So as a fan of most comic movies, willing to give anything a shot, here's my take on X-Men Apocalypse.
Writing
Naturally, the writing in the movie is fairly tight, as most X-men Movies are. One pitfall of the movie however, is the amount of characters. Due to the amount of characters, the movie somewhat struggles to flesh all of them out. Although in a way it is to be expected with such a large ensemble of characters. The motives in the movie are somewhat shaky, although in the end, most come together.
That's not to say it detracted from the whole movie, as everything else was written particularly well. There were a lot of fun lines and the dialogue was pretty great. The new X-team especially was introduced well.
Characters
Most characters you see in the movie are pretty great. All returning cast members from Days Of Future Past are particularly enjoyable. As many people are detractors of Jennifer Lawrence, I will admit she wasn't the most engaging character in the movie. However, she far from ruined it. I would honestly compare her role to Wolverine in Days of Future Past, due to other characters being focused on more.
The New X-Team especially was enjoyable. And fans that were annoyed by the treatment of Cyclops in the original trilogy will be pleasantly surprised to see Tye Sheridan's excellent performance. Noticably absent from the movie was Jubilee. Treated almost as an extra in the movie, it was disappointing to put much of a spotlight on her in promo material. Although who knows, we may see a 'Jubilee Cut' come out later this year.
'Comic Accuracy'
As always, fans of the comics will be skeptical of the movie. There are some incredibly 'X-Men' centric moments, although the lack of colorful costumes will surely be a turnoff for some. But besides costumes, the characterization of most X-men are fairly close to the comics. If anything, I feel as if people will take a liking to this movie over DOFP for comic accuracy.
Needless to say, the ending does definitely give me a feeling that the next X-Men movie may be a lot more comic accurate.
The Villain
I'd say easily the most mixed thing I felt about this movie was the villain, Apocalypse. I feel that the X-Men movies have always worked more when they face a more personal threat, so Apocalypse hardly fits that bill. Oscar Isaac does have a powerful performance, but not an amazing performance. I feel that is one downside to these "Godlike" characters such as Thanos or Apocalypse where they lack character and instead just have a commanding presence. The problem with his character isn't that he's a bad villain, it's just that he's servicable villain.
This definitely should give the message to Fox that the X-Men movies do not need to have a large-scale threat to work and should instead focus on smaller scale villains.
Performances
As usual this movie follows all other X-men movies with it's great performances. Nearly everyone returns with their A-Game for this installment. The new cast of X-men also deliver a great performance, especially Tye Sheridan and Kodi Smit-Mcphee. In fact, just about every person on the X-men gives a stellar performance, with a noticable downgrade on the villain side.
While Apocalypse has a servicable performance as the big bad villain, Psylocke, Storm, and Angel suffer. The three come off as having little character (aside from Storm) and are treated more as pawns in the movie. Fassbender howver, delivers yet another great performance as Magneto. He has some more personal, intimate moments than DOFP and overall is the best character on the villain's side.
Direction
Bryan Singer returns to direct his fourth installment, and in the end.. He did a solid job of directing. Many people love to bag on Singer, but he is reliable with his solid directorial skills. The action in the movie was excellent carrying over from DOFP, along with performances. In spite of that, the biggest problem with his directing was just having so much stuff in the movie. Having too much stuff is kinda snyonymous with an X-men comic, although it doesn't transfer as well with the movie. That's not to say he did a bad job with all of it. Simply that a lot of it was great, but he left a few characters in the dust.
All-In-All
In the end, the film was.. not as great as his other installments. Honestly, I'd put it a notch above X-Men 1, a movie that I personally enjoy very much. It's a slight misstep in the franchise, but it's still a very solid movie. It's just not as great as X2 or Days of Future Past was.
That's not to say it's a bad movie in any way, It has some of the best action in the franchise and has some of the best scenes in the series. In a way, it just shows the problems of making a movie with a godlike threat. But besides that, literally everything else is so good. The X-Men meld so tightly together, the performances are great as usual, and it opens up some new avenues for the X-men to go in the future.
All-in-all, I would rate this above the first X-men and almost as good as First Class. If you're looking for an incredibly fun movie, check it out. It's still a well-made movie and a solid installment into the series.
4/5