X-Men: Apocalypse
Year: 2016
Director: Bryan Singer
Starring: Rose Byrne, Michael Fassbender, Nicholas Hoult, Oscar Isaac, Jennifer Lawrence, James McAvoy, Tye Sheridan & Sophie Turner
Runtime: 144 mins
BBFC: 12
Published: 18/01/22
Director: Bryan Singer
Starring: Rose Byrne, Michael Fassbender, Nicholas Hoult, Oscar Isaac, Jennifer Lawrence, James McAvoy, Tye Sheridan & Sophie Turner
Runtime: 144 mins
BBFC: 12
Published: 18/01/22
When X-Men: Days of Future Past released in 2014 it broke the rules of conventional superhero films that its predecessors had helped establish in the early 2000’s. Whilst not quite as innovative as some superhero films like The Dark Knight, for its time Days of Future Past was one of the boldest films in the genre and it performed with extreme grace.
Following up such a monumental success was always going to be difficult, especially when it meant returning to the status-quo of prior X-Men films. X-Men: Apocalypse was certainly a complete let down for many, but now the dust has well and truly settled on Fox’s X-Men franchise, was X-Men: Apocalypse as bad as everyone thought it was when it released in 2016?
Ten years have passed since the events of Days of Future Past with the world now well and truly aware of the existence of mutant kind, and many still fearful of their presence in society following Magneto’s (Michael Fassbender) public address.
Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Hank McCoy (Nicholas Hoult) have set up the School for the Gifted in Xavier’s childhood home, where they train young mutants such as Scott Summers (Tye Sheridan) and Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) to control their powers and provide them with a top-quality education. Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) travels the globe in search of mutants that need help, in Berlin she aids a young Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and brings him to Charles’ school to help him.
Meanwhile in Egypt, Moira McTaggart (Rose Byrne) accidentally awakens an ancient and powerful mutant known in legend as Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac). Seeing how humans dominate mutants in the modern world, Apocalypse enlists the aid of Angel (Ben Hardy), Psylocke (Olivia Munn), Storm (Alexandra Shipp), and Magneto to help him ensure that mutant-kind become the dominant species on the planet.
Following up such a monumental success was always going to be difficult, especially when it meant returning to the status-quo of prior X-Men films. X-Men: Apocalypse was certainly a complete let down for many, but now the dust has well and truly settled on Fox’s X-Men franchise, was X-Men: Apocalypse as bad as everyone thought it was when it released in 2016?
Ten years have passed since the events of Days of Future Past with the world now well and truly aware of the existence of mutant kind, and many still fearful of their presence in society following Magneto’s (Michael Fassbender) public address.
Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Hank McCoy (Nicholas Hoult) have set up the School for the Gifted in Xavier’s childhood home, where they train young mutants such as Scott Summers (Tye Sheridan) and Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) to control their powers and provide them with a top-quality education. Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) travels the globe in search of mutants that need help, in Berlin she aids a young Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and brings him to Charles’ school to help him.
Meanwhile in Egypt, Moira McTaggart (Rose Byrne) accidentally awakens an ancient and powerful mutant known in legend as Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac). Seeing how humans dominate mutants in the modern world, Apocalypse enlists the aid of Angel (Ben Hardy), Psylocke (Olivia Munn), Storm (Alexandra Shipp), and Magneto to help him ensure that mutant-kind become the dominant species on the planet.
X-Men: Apocalypse is alright. It’s not anywhere near as terrible as people make it out to be, but I’m also not going to pretend that it’s great. As a superhero film it hits all the beats it needs to in order to be reasonably enjoyable, but especially in an age where the MCU was entering its final stages of Phase Three, and even DC were at least trying to be ambitious, X-Men: Apocalypse just settles for being a run of the mill superhero film circa 2004. I say that time specifically because arguably the films biggest mistake is not even using the X-Men brand of social commentary. There’s very little in the way of prejudice against mutants, or even just acknowledgement that humans and mutants occupy the same space in this film, which for an X-Men film is just weird. In comparison to the X-Men films of the early 2000’s, Apocalypse is underwhelming in comparison, concerned far more with glitzy action set-pieces than the characters at the core of the story. It’s as good as films like Ang Lee’s Hulk, the first Fantastic Four film, and Elektra; in other words, there’s nothing insultingly bad about it, but it’s not exactly memorable.
This is arguably made worse by Apocalypse having the longest runtime of any X-Men film in the franchise at two hours and thirty minutes, falling in line with DC films of the time where the film feels bloated because there isn’t enough content there to fill the runtime. It’s padded out with several fight sequences and conversations that lead nowhere, which I think only makes the matter of the film not being particularly special in any area even worse.
The film also side-lines the characters that arguably made First Class and Days of Future Past so enjoyable, with Xavier and Magneto relegated to McGuffin’s and background characters respectively. Hank and Mystique also don’t have the same kind of presence in the story as they did last time around, and their time spent together is relatively minimal. We do get to spend a lot of time with Scott, Jean, and Nightcrawler, however they aren’t nearly as interesting or captivating as the previously mentioned characters, and they’re very underwhelming when compared to their adult selves in the original X-Men films.
Apocalypse also doesn’t get a much development as he needs and as a result, he is simply just a bad guy who wants to do bad things. It makes sense of Magneto to join him but we don’t get much motive from the character, and Isaac’s talent’s are thereby kind of wasted.
This is arguably made worse by Apocalypse having the longest runtime of any X-Men film in the franchise at two hours and thirty minutes, falling in line with DC films of the time where the film feels bloated because there isn’t enough content there to fill the runtime. It’s padded out with several fight sequences and conversations that lead nowhere, which I think only makes the matter of the film not being particularly special in any area even worse.
The film also side-lines the characters that arguably made First Class and Days of Future Past so enjoyable, with Xavier and Magneto relegated to McGuffin’s and background characters respectively. Hank and Mystique also don’t have the same kind of presence in the story as they did last time around, and their time spent together is relatively minimal. We do get to spend a lot of time with Scott, Jean, and Nightcrawler, however they aren’t nearly as interesting or captivating as the previously mentioned characters, and they’re very underwhelming when compared to their adult selves in the original X-Men films.
Apocalypse also doesn’t get a much development as he needs and as a result, he is simply just a bad guy who wants to do bad things. It makes sense of Magneto to join him but we don’t get much motive from the character, and Isaac’s talent’s are thereby kind of wasted.
Something that is definitely a little bit of a problem with Apocalypse’s story is how it diverges from the ending established in Days of Future Past for the original X-Men cast. At the end of Future Past, it’s implied that Wolverine’s success on his mission produced an alternate history which the professor is going to catch him up on. But in Apocalypse this history isn’t consistent with what we see at the end of Future Past.
The only explanation is that this that Wolverine’s interference created an alternate timeline that is totally separate from the events shown in Apocalypse, but this obviously is never addressed and then makes you wonder why Singer went through all the trouble to make the prequel and original timelines match up in Future past when he was just going to do something totally different in Apocalypse.
The other big issue I have is that nobody is getting any older. X-Men: First Class took place in the 60’s when characters like Charles and Mystique were in their twenties. Apocalypse takes place in the eighties and there’s been no effort made to make them look older than they were in First Class. By this point Charles should be in his forties and Magneto in his fifties, but they look like they’re in their early thirties at a push.
The special effects are also a little underwhelming too with a lot of the CGI looking very rubbery. Days of Future Past had this problem primarily in its final act, but with Apocalypse it’s all the way through and for a film of this budget and a series with as much brand recognition as this then it really shouldn’t be as lacklustre as it is. Arguably the only truly impressive use of CGI in the film is Quicksilver’s (Evan Peters) run around the X-Mansion. Building on the similar sequence found in Days of Future Past, this slow-mo action sequence is great fun and is considerably better than the already strong sequence in the previous film.
There are things to enjoy in X-Men: Apocalypse, but unfortunately there’s also a lot that just feels underwhelming in comparison to many of the other films in the franchise. It’s not bad, and as a result is definitely better than films like Origins: Wolverine, Dark Phoenix, and potentially even The Last Stand. But there’s no denying the film has some major problems, which I think is even more surprising when you consider it’s directed by Bryan Singer, creator of the franchise and director of X-Men 1, 2, and Days of Future Past. Just an average film released in a time when anything other than exceptional simply wasn’t good enough.
The only explanation is that this that Wolverine’s interference created an alternate timeline that is totally separate from the events shown in Apocalypse, but this obviously is never addressed and then makes you wonder why Singer went through all the trouble to make the prequel and original timelines match up in Future past when he was just going to do something totally different in Apocalypse.
The other big issue I have is that nobody is getting any older. X-Men: First Class took place in the 60’s when characters like Charles and Mystique were in their twenties. Apocalypse takes place in the eighties and there’s been no effort made to make them look older than they were in First Class. By this point Charles should be in his forties and Magneto in his fifties, but they look like they’re in their early thirties at a push.
The special effects are also a little underwhelming too with a lot of the CGI looking very rubbery. Days of Future Past had this problem primarily in its final act, but with Apocalypse it’s all the way through and for a film of this budget and a series with as much brand recognition as this then it really shouldn’t be as lacklustre as it is. Arguably the only truly impressive use of CGI in the film is Quicksilver’s (Evan Peters) run around the X-Mansion. Building on the similar sequence found in Days of Future Past, this slow-mo action sequence is great fun and is considerably better than the already strong sequence in the previous film.
There are things to enjoy in X-Men: Apocalypse, but unfortunately there’s also a lot that just feels underwhelming in comparison to many of the other films in the franchise. It’s not bad, and as a result is definitely better than films like Origins: Wolverine, Dark Phoenix, and potentially even The Last Stand. But there’s no denying the film has some major problems, which I think is even more surprising when you consider it’s directed by Bryan Singer, creator of the franchise and director of X-Men 1, 2, and Days of Future Past. Just an average film released in a time when anything other than exceptional simply wasn’t good enough.