I’ve wanted to see Apocalypse on
the big screen since the original run of movies. That’s about fifteen years of
waiting, and I must say that… I like it. It’s not the greatest film I’ve ever
seen. But it’s far, far from the worst. It does do a few things amazingly well.
And yet there’s something about it that, in my opinion, is holding it back. Let’s
get to it, shall we?
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| A really well designed poster. |
The movie opens in ancient Egypt. A
gold clad figure is being worshipped by his legion of followers. They chant En
Sabah Nur, while several guards make very obvious “We’re planning something”
gestures. Once inside, they dispense with the gold and we see a very old, blue
man. This is En Sabah Nur, aka Apocalypse, the first Mutant ever born and
extremely powerful being. The other guys bedecked in Gold are his minions, the
Four Horsemen. One of his Horsemen slices a man on a pedestal, revealing that
the obvious sacrifice has healing powers. They make a veiled reference that
now, Nur will be able to “rule forever.” They begin a ceremony, revealing a
giant golden idol atop the pyramid. As the sun shines on the golden pyramid, a
transfer begins. Nur transfers his consciousness into this new body, which
turns blue and gains his adornments. While Nur is temporarily vulnerable, the
traitors begin their assault. They spring this elaborate trap to bury Nur and
his minions. It works… by and large. Nur’s minions are killed in the collapse,
but they’re able to safeguard their master. Which of course begs the question,
why the heck did Apocalypse make it so obvious that this transfer was
happening? Even if I was a being with near godlike power, I would not ever
let my downtrodden masses learn of even one moment where I’d be vulnerable.
Just saying. Another side note, I could understand the traitors shouting a lot
of things. Death to Tyrants. Death to dark Gods. Death to Evil Gods. Death to Pharaoh.
But, I can’t imagine an ancient culture shouting “Death to false Gods.”
Apocalypse is a God in nearly every sense of the word, the man can disassemble
things on a molecular level. How would anyone in 3000 bc not think he was a
God? Back on task.
In the modern era, Mutants have
been largely accepted as a “part of life” by the rest of the world, but things
are far from peaceful. In East Berlin, Mystique is helping save Mutants in
danger. She frees Warren Worthington aka Angel and Kurt Wagner aka
Nightcrawler, two Mutants that were being forced into a no-holds barred cage
match. Angel flies off, despite a partially burnt wing, while Mystique takes
Nightcrawler. And in Poland, Magneto is living peacefully. He’s married and
working in a factory. They’re soo happy… you know it’s going to end badly. It
is a movie after all. Back in Egypt, CIA Special Agent Moira MacTaggert, is
investigating something. In a seedy carpet store, she discovers a cult
worshiping the golden pyramid top from Nur’s days. Unfortunately, it’s her
discovering the cult that leads to this films conflict. In finding the
underground cavern, she neglects to recover the hidden entrance. Sunlight hits
the pyramid for centuries, energizing the Pyramid, and Nur beneath. Nur
awakens, destroys the cavern, and creates a powerful shockwave that travels
across the globe.
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| If I had to guess, his first ability was Telekinesis so powerful he could effect atoms. If not, it was definetly his favorite power. |
Back in the states, a young man
named Scott Summers begins to manifest his iconic optic beams. Alex Summers aka
Havok, his older brother in this version, takes him to meet Prof. X. I will
point out that this is the point where I realized that they seemed to embrace
the “floating time” from the comics. Basically, while time around the
characters is marching forward the characters themselves don’t age accordingly.
So, while 20 years of time has obviously passed in terms of fashion and
technology, the characters haven’t aged that much. Why do I say that? Assuming
that Havok was 18 in X-Men: First Class
which takes place in 1962, then by this movie, taking place in 1983, Havok is
just shy of 40 years old. Now, that’s not too out there. My own father is 18
years older than his youngest brother, but given the brief glimps of Mr. and
Mrs. Summers, they don’t look old enough to have a son that is very nearly 40.
Just saying.
Back in Cairo, Nur saves a young
pickpocket named Ororo Monroe, who can control the weather to a limited degree.
She takes him back to her place as thanks, and spouts a little exposition about
hero-worshipping Mystique. Apparently in this timeline, she’s seen as the hero
that stopped the villainous Magneto. Sees that everyone forgot when she
threatened Bolivar Trask and the president with a gun. Selective memories, I
guess. Nur uses his powers and Ororo’s TV to catch up on the last 5000 years of
history. He’s not amused by the so called Superpowers. He plans to pick up
where he left off, conquering the world. He upgrades Storm’s powers, turning
her hair white as well. Rookie mistake Nur, never mess with a woman’s hair.
During Nur’s awakening, his
shockwave caused an earthquake that spread across the globe. This became a
problem for Magneto. The earthquake caused a large piece of machinery to fall,
nearly crushing a coworker. But, Magneto chooses to use his powers to save a coworker.
Knowing that revealing his powers leads to trouble, Magneto tries to spirit his
family way, but the cops are faster. They apprehend his daughter, and order
that Magneto come with them. They were smart enough to leave behind anything metal,
so he’s forced to follow along. His daughter isn’t happy with her dad being
arrested, and uses her Mutant powers to summon forest animals to attack the
cops. In the confusion, a cop with a bow accidently releases the arrow which
kills Magneto’s wife and daughter. In a very dark moment, Magneto uses a locket
he’d given his daughter, that has a photo of his dead parents inside, to murder
all the cops. Yeah, really dark. At least use the Coin from First Class, it was already coated in
blood and not a family heirloom with your dead parent’s pictures in it.
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| Definitely has the grandeur of an ancient God, |
After meeting Scott and giving him
a little tutoring, Xavier and Alex travel to DC to learn what Moira was doing
in Cairo. Cerebro gave them the hint. They learn about Apocalypse and his habit
of recruiting four powerful minions. Xavier also takes the time to hit on Moira
a little. Got to make up for lost time, I guess. Meanwhile, Apocalypse is recruiting.
He travels to Caliban, a black marketer and information broker. In the comics
he could also locate and track any mutant on Earth. Just an FYI. After threatening
Caliban, they recruit his top enforcer, Psylocke and continue on their quest. I
find it pretty funny that they went out of their way to not use Psylocke’s real
name. Can’t begrudge them this, though, Olivia Munn just doesn’t look like a
Betsy does she? They then track down Angel, and Apocalypse upgrades his wings. Side
note, Psylocke makes a remark about Angel’s “Flying days are done,” because of
his injury from the fight with Kurt. That was a minor burn at worst. Give him
two or three months and his wing would have been back to normal without crazy
metal upgrades. After that they track down Magneto, and recruit the damaged man
as their forth horseman. They do an amazing scene where Magneto obliterates Auschwitz
as a sign of him fully embracing his powers.
Back in the States, Xavier, Moira
and Alex are greeted by Mystique and Nightcrawler. Mystique, having learned
about the rediscovery of Magneto and the tragic death of his family wants
Charles’ help in finding him. Xavier does, using Cerebro. He tries to convince
his friend to come back to the mansion, but Magneto refuses. Unfortunately,
Apocalypse senses Charles, and hijacks the psychic connection. Using Charles’
powers and Cerebro, he forces all the nations of the world to launch all their
nuclear arsenals into space. He smiles creepily at how easily he dispatched the
so called Superpowers. Xavier has Havok destroy Cerebro to cut Apocalypse off
from Charles augmented powers. Apocalypse and the horsemen arrive and kidnap
Charles. Havok tries to stop them, but instead destroys the X-Men’s jet, the
Blackbird, causing a massive explosion. They’d all have died horribly, if
Quicksilver hadn’t stopped by.
Pietro, I refuse to call him Peter,
had come to get Xavier to find Magneto, as he wanted to meet his bio-dad. He
superspeeds in, and saves everyone he can. It’s like the superspeed scene from
Days of Future Past, but amped up further. Scott, Jean Grey, Jubilee, and Kurt
arrive back at the mansion. They had a very funny, but pretty pointless scene
of their reaction of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. Jubilee thought Empire was
best, Scott says the original was best, and Jean makes a crack about the third
film being the worst. Whoever wrote this joke and gave it to Jean, I love you.
The group is horrified to see the mansion blow up, and Scott is heartbroken to
learn his brother was killed in the blast. But, it’s this heartbreak
that saved the day. While Scott is mourning, and Nightcrawler and Jean try to
comfort him, William Stryker, military big wig and colossal Delusional Idiotic Callous Killer, arrives, knocks out the other mutants
and kidnap Mystique, Beast, Quicksilver, and Moira. Scott, Jean and Kurt, who were outside the radius of their knock out weapon, stow
away on the helicopter, and travel to Stryker's base on Alkali Lake.
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| The worlds Nukes are beneath him. Think about that. |
Stryker tries to interrogate them about
Charles, erroneously believing Charles was the cause of the planet wide
earthquake, just as Charles is forced to send a message to the world.
Basically, Apocalypse wants to threaten the world but promise that the strong
with survive. In a final F-U moment, Charles changes the last line to encourage
the strongest to protect the weak. He also sends an SOS for Jean. Never
underestimate Charles Xavier. Scott, Jean and Kurt try to free the others from
their anti-mutant prison, and discover Weapon X. They free Logan, who goes HAM
on Strykers men. After… clearing out most of the soldiers, Jean uses her psychic
powers to “give back” a piece of his mind. She found his name, essentially.
Logan runs off, and I’m sure we’ll never see him again. They free Mystique and
the rest, and they steal a secret military plane to get to Cairo. What is Apocalypse’
plan? Phase 1, use Magneto’s powers to alter Earth’s magnetic poles. The
violent alteration is pretty much an extinction level catastrophe. So yeah, chances
of survival are pretty low. Even for Mutants. Phase 2, to transfer his consciousness
into Charles’ body. Why? Such a transfer is how Apocalypse collects powers. He
transmits his mind, and powers, to a new body, reclaiming youth and whatever
powers the new body had. Telepathy is one power he doesn’t have yet. Which is
pretty nuts, right? Dude collected technopathy, the ability to connect his mind
to machines, 3000 years before we even had the lightbulb. HOW? Phase 3, use
Charles’ immense psychic power to control the survivors of Phase 1. Immortal,
with immense power, and in total control of the hundreds of people that make up
his superior Homo Superior race. Sound plan. Not going to lie.
Good first. I still like most of the character
in their roles. Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy and Nicholas Hoult are great
in their parts. Jennifer Lawrence is great too, but I still don’t care for this
superheroic version of Mystique. I had moments were I thought they’d just
turned her into Katniss Everdeen again. I like Evan Peter’s Quicksilver too.
They clearly learned from Days of Future Past and gave him a much bigger role
this time around. And, while she’s honestly not given that much to do, Olivia
Munn’s Psylocke is both gorgeous and terrifying. Newcomers Tye Sheridan, Sophie
Turner, Alexandra Shipp, and Kodi Smit-McPhee are great as Cyclops, Jean,
Storm, and Nightcrawler respectively. Oscar Isaac does an acceptable job as En
Sabah Nur. I really love the fact that Po Dameron is the unstoppable God of
Destruction. Seriously, look it up. While Apocalypse from X-Men: The Animated Series and X-Men:
Evolution are still my favorites, there are still moments here where I
could believe that I was watching the ancient Mutant made flesh. Effects are
stunning, from Apocalypse obliteration things to Mystiques shapeshifting to
Quicksilver’s running and beyond are all really well done.
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| Pietro is always cranked to 11. |
The bad is minor, but does weaken
the film overall. As per usual, the movie doesn’t really utilize their more
minor characters. Fox seems to still think that it’s just okay to give us a
name, or minor glimpse of a character and that’ll satisfy us. I’m thinking of
Angel in particular. Warren Worthington the III is a major X-Man, being one of
the original five. He has a long history, coming to terms with things like his
distant and mutant hating father, and his own more dickish tendencies. He
tragically loses his wings in a battle, which scars him as much psychologically
as physically. His transformation into Death, Horseman of Apocalypse, is as
much a mental attack on the X-Men as a physical one. Scott, Jean, Hank, and
Bobby are horrified to see their old friend completely consumed by evil. In
this version… he’s a dick. We see he’s being forced to fight other Mutants, and
seems to be enjoying it a little too much, that he’s bummed out when his wing
is injured, and that he becomes a loyal Horseman. No connection to the X-Men.
No complex back story. No even real reason for Apocalypse to choose him as a Horseman.
Other than Angel was a Horseman in the comics. Hank aka Beast is also rather
underutilized. He’s a super genius with super strength and agility, he builds
most of the X-Men tech, and is the only actual original X-Man of the X-Men. And
yet most of his time in this one seems to be hitting on Mystique, complaining
about Magneto, and growling. Which is just weird. And, as I said above, not a
huge fan of Mockingjay Mystique. Apparently in the 10 years in universe since
the last film, she’s like, the rallying point that young Mutant’s flock behind.
Which I don’t get. Sure, she helped stop Magneto, but I don’t see being involved in that would throw one person of a group to superhero superstardom. Or at least to the degree that
Ororo, living in third world conditions, would have heard of her. Just saying. And,
much like X-Men: First Class, it feels really rushed in places. It needs to not
only introduce Apocalypse, and show the changes since he last film, AND
introduce all the new X-Men. That’s a lot to do. Makes me wonder why they even
wasted time on Jubilee. She’s just there to hang around Scott, Jean and Kurt,
and is abandoned when the other three go to save Mystique and the others. She’s
basically Ginny Weasley. No, wait, Ginny actually got some character
development. She’s the Lavender Brown. Just kind of there.
Overall, this gets a B+. I like the cast,
story and effects, but some little things that irked me keep it from hitting
the A range. I don’t know, while its better than Batman V. Superman it’s still not to the same level as Captain America: Civil War. Or even its
predecessor, Days of Future Past. Which is a shame, because members of the
X-Men make up many of my favorite heroes, and Apocalypse is one of my favorite
villains. It’s still worlds better than X-Men:
The Last Stand, which is not something
I’m not going to complain about. Have a good one.
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