So, is X:Men Apocalypse worth seeing?
Weeellllll….
This movie’s a weird one to review, because I don’t understand all the hate it’s getting. Basically, it’s fine, but the thing I most took away from it is… Well… That’s just it, I didn’t really get anything from it. While this movie has a perfectly functioning plot with good actors and good performances, not much stood out for me that told me why this movie needed to exist in the first place.
I know it’s a weird thing to say, but by the end of this film, minus a few less characters that I will not spoil, I wasn’t really sure how the world was any different to how it was by the end of Days of Future Past. I wasn’t totally sure why this story needed to be told as it didn’t really do much that couldn’t be done off-screen. By the end of it I just felt like I’d watched two and a half hours of… scenes.
That’s not to say all the scenes were the same, there were certainly some stand-out ones, particularly some earlier stuff with Michael Fassbender’s Magneto, but there were a lot of scenes that felt like they were covering a much less interesting story. That’s what I believe is the main problem with this film, I just don’t think the story is as good. Everything works well to make it, but the story itself isn’t quite Days of Future Past level, and I’m not sure it’s actually trying to be.
Alright, on to the characters.
I’ll start with the titular Apocalypse. While Oscar Isaac brings the character to life in a very menacing way, Apocalypse the character never quite hits his full stride. Although, I feel like if he had he would’ve destroyed the whole planet. There was definitely a sense of power and threat portrayed with the character where you felt like he really could just kill anybody. But where Bryan Singer shows his best is with the X-Men themselves. Cyclops, Jean and Nightcrawler all easily slot in to the universe to a point where I wasn’t even thinking about their predecessors’ performances, and Professor X and Magneto once again supply an amount of heart and soul that has become the backbone of these films. The Four Horsemen are all good, and Quicksilver is good.
The way the plot is presented is organic enough, all the character’s motivations worked fine and one or two interesting things were setup for the future, I just can’t get away from the thought that this movie really didn’t need to exist. More interesting things happened off-screen between First Class and Days of Future Past than did throughout this film. And again, I wouldn’t call this movie terrible; it certainly whiled away two and a half hours, but I’m left with the question… Why?
Look, if you’re a fan of the X-Men franchise, then go and see it. It’s not offensive or terrible in anyway and it doesn’t stand-out as amazing, but there are some interesting scenes throughout the film. Just keep in mind that nothing ultimately changes that couldn’t just be said rather than shown. I’m not entirely sure why, I wouldn’t say this was Bryan Singer’s doing, again, he shows he knows the characters of the X-Men and sets up a few things I feel like he really wants to do, but this movie felt more like a bridge between more interesting stories. I am still very much interested in the future of this story and am looking forward to what comes next.
Thanks for reading