[Movie Review] X-Men: Apocalypse

“Sweet Dreams are made of this.”
X-Men Apocalypse reviews dropped a month ago when Captain America: Civil War was the darling on Rotten Tomatoes and everyone made it out to be a garbage fire.
I have no idea what movie they actually saw.
My X-Men First Class review is here and my X-Men Days of Future Past review is here.

X-Men Apocalypse begins like an episode of Stargate SG-1 somewhere in the Nile around 650 BCE with a nameless pharaoh and his followers journey to his pyramid. The group is lavished by followers but not all are very happy. Once secure in his pyramid the nameless pharaoh is unmasked to be not human and neither are his four body guards at the sight of their mutant powers.
The nameless mutant finds a new body one that can regenerate ala a certain Canadian and a ceremony begins very remnant of the original Stargate movie where the soul of the mutant is transferred into his willing host except the aforementioned followers have other plans and the nameless mutant and his inner circle are buried underground all but forgotten about.
The title sequence that we’ve grown used to for X-Men movies deposits us in the 80’s in time for Scott Summers played by Tye Sheridan to manifest his powers reminiscent of X-Men Origins: Wolverine. This time instead of being captured by Sabertooth, Alex Summers played by Lucas Till sporting the full 80’s mullet takes his younger brother to School of the Gifted and for a good amount of time Bryan Singer shows he still knows what he’s doing with dropping names of mutants here and there. You can almost forget the fact Days of Future Past just about erased everything built in X-Men First Class.
It’s during this first act of the film that plays catch up with everyone from the prior two films and this is where the move idles until it speeds up too much because we have a cast of thousands! Unfortunately, not all of the cast gets an arc.
Mystique played by Jennifer Lawrence minus the blue make up due to her recent rise to fame within the mutant underground a as figure head that she’s been trying to run away from. It’s during these early scenes we find Erik Lensherr played again by Michael Fassbender has settled down, married, had a child, accent-less Moria Mactaggert once again played by Rose Bryne, is still sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong and several familiar mutants make their entrances like Angel played by Ben Hardy and Nightcrawler played by Kodi Smit-McPhee.
It’s unfortunate Nightcrawler has to be added to this already full movie since this voids X-2 timeline much to various people’s liking since X-2 had a great use of Nightcrawler in the attack on the White House in the first 5mins of the movie.
Storm played by Alexandra Shipp, has more dialogue than Pysclocke played by Olivia Munn. This brings up a good argument: Was it better to turn down Deadpool’s stripper girlfriend or stand around Auschwitz dressed in an outfit that while comic book accurate really didn’t need to worn to that one location. And stand around they do. Angel had more of an arc in the much maligned X3 than he does here.
As for Apocalypse, you wouldn’t even know Oscar Isaac is playing the big blue meanie. Everyone has complained about the makeup and I thought it looked fine.
For a movie that’s nearly two hour and half, there are brief battles here and there but the amount of characters showing up in the X-Men movies are starting to strain things. At least give Olivia some lines. Thankfully, Storm has some sense and asks questions when the newly arisen Apocalypse wanders around town and finds the nearest TV and is quickly figures out the world has past him by and no one worships anything anymore.
His plans for world domination is rather simple: get rid of all the nukes and then take over. This plan is rather simple as evil villain plans go because he’s figured out what he needs to do: take all those toys away and then establish himself and finding Xavier and his telepathic mind makes him the perfect next host.
Oh, and Quicksilver played again by Evan Peters who knows full well who is father is by now and while still living in his mother’s basement has a small arc to find him and ventures off to the fabled school only to again steal the movie because they know how to use him properly even it means disaster p0rn follows. Can we please have a moratorium on blowing up or destroying the X-Mansion?
It’s during these scenes that William Stryker, played again by Josh Helman rears his ugly head and captures half the team and off to Alcai Lake with Weapon X we go! This feels like that moment in Civil War when the web slinger is introduced but instead it’s given more substance than the previous scene where the mansion goes boom. Substance with adamantium claws and once again negates X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Yes, I was very happy with these scenes.
Among the downsides is the stinger scene at the end of the credits. Like the last movie, a lot of people will be like: What the heck is Essex Corporation? It’s Mister Sinister. The problem is we’re shown and not told.
Generally, I’d say yay, we’re shown and not told but there’s being shown and then there’s leaving us in the dark on purpose. It’s okay to have Stryker being called on the carpet for this fubar and being replaced by a certain Mister Sinister. That’s the scene that makes me wait until the end of the movie. A stinger with substance!
Do we get to choose the next song for Quicksilver to run to in the 90s?
Overall, the movie is nowhere near as bad as say X3 or parts of Days of Future Past. Instead, if it just slowed down and let the supporting cast talk it could’ve been as fun as First Class.