Wednesday, June 15, 2016

X-Men: Apocalypse: A Review


MINOR SPOILERS BELOW

I was not as over the moon for X-Men: Days of Future Past as other people seemed to be. I didn't think it was bad, and it was cool to see the original cast for one last hurrah, but it wasn't particularly spectacular. That film didn't even live up to the potential of its predecessor, X-Men: First Class, which was an amazing reboot of the franchise which could have gone in some interesting directions. But Days of Future Past seemed to squander that potential for something more familiar and less ambitious. And I'm sorry to say X-Men: Apocalypse continues the series in that direction.

To describe Apocalypse in one word, I would have to choose cluttered. There are so many different subplots going on in this film, it sometimes feels like an entire season of a television series crammed into two & a half hours. The catalyst of everything is En Sabah Nur (Oscar Isaac), a supremely powerful mutant from Ancient Egypt who has reawakened in the 1980s (Apocalypse carries on the period piece tradition started by First Class) and has decided to destroy civilization and rebuild it with himself as a god-king. To do this, he travels around the world and recruits several other powerful mutants to act as his henchmen. This includes Magneto (Michael Fassbender), who has been living in secret and raising a family in Communist Poland since the previous film. But life likes shitting on Magneto, so his family dies and En Sabah Nur convinces him to turn evil again. All this world traveling catches the attention of both Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) and Professor Xavier (James McAvoy) and forces them to reconcile their relationship after the hardship of the previous films. If that plot synopsis sound complicated, the movie only makes it slightly more coherent.


Oscar Isaac as En Sabah Nur, the titular Apocalypse.
He's a dramatic fellow.
That morass of plot elements is what holds the film back. It has way too much going on but nothing gets enough attention or work put into it to feel like it matters. Part of the problem is that Apocalypse does the same thing Days of Future Past did and radically changes the status quo of the characters from where we left at the end of the previous film. So most of the film is just setting up what happened to everyone since then, negating the one advantage working in an ongoing film series gives you. That decision, and the massive amount of characters the film juggles, makes the emotional story arcs of those characters fall short. They come across as half thought out because they have to jockey for time and attention with plot setup and exposition. For example, Storm is introduced early in the film as the first of En Sabah Nur's recruits. Ostensibly, she follows him because he gave her powers an upgrade and he actually sees some potential in her. But it's also established that Storm admires Mystique for her actions in Days of Future Past and so when she sees Sabah Nur attacking Mystique in the climax, this causes her to defect to the X-Men. It makes sense on paper but it's given so little screen time Storm's face turn has almost no impact.

This overabundance wouldn't be as much of a problem if the plot threads Bryan Singer and the filmmakers decided to focus on actually mattered in the long run, but most of them don't. Particularly egregious is one subplot near the end of the second act where some of the X-Men are kidnapped by the government. It comes out of nowhere, connects to nothing else in the film, and exists only for a gratuitous Wolverine cameo and to set up the post-credits stinger. But the plot thread I have the most problem with is Magneto's for being needlessly grim. Seriously, the filmmakers give him a loving wife and daughter but they only exist to be killed off and motivate him to return to evil. That is messed up and sexist. The whole film has instances of this, where something is presented as important in the moment and then vanishes with barely a mention. Instead the filmmakers focus on readjusting continuity pieces and going over old character dynamics.

The New X-Men, from left to right: Jean Grey (Sophie Turner),
Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee) & Cyclops (Tye Sheridan).
Also hurting the proceedings are the villains. Oscar Isaac does what he can, but the pounds of makeup dull his natural charisma and his whispery tone mutes the menace somewhat. But he's leagues above his henchmen who besides Magneto are given almost no characterization and barely have any impact on the plot. They don't even provide a visually engaging challenge for the X-Men at the climax. Boring villains do not a good superhero movie make. The acting is a little better on the hero side of things even if they're only given a shade or two more characterization. All the returning cast perform well, with McAvoy the standout for Apocalypse, and the young actors playing the new X-Men comport themselves well. Sophie Turner as the young Jean Grey is the MVP in their group but anyone watching Game of Thrones could have told you that.

Ultimately, X-Men: Apocalypse really only works on the level of a blockbuster superhero flick. Not terrible, but there just isn't enough effort in the production to rise above good enough. Which is the problem with the X-Men movies in general. All the pieces are there that with a little polish and attention, these films could really shine amongst their genre. But the filmmakers seem to be content with being good enough. Which is disappointing. I enjoyed Apocalypse but it never escaped me that that it could have been so much better.

Final Score: 3/5

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