[Film Review] X-Men: Apocalypse

Note: This review contains spoilers.


Days of Future Past worked because it's plot flowed along the lines of character, and even when things fell apart in the logic department, the film held up because of it.  It is then beyond me why Apocalypse decided to forgo character in favor of the worst type of Thor movie meets the villain of Guardians of the Galaxy.

Apocalypse is a boring villain, and so much of the film relies on him.  Apocalypse, as far as I can tell, absorbs people's power by moving from body to body, and he wants to take control of the entire world and believes Professor X can give him the power to accomplish this. Everything between here and there is stilted lines (Jean Grey speaks only in this way) and a numbing amount of special affects.  Tired references and ironic lines, the hundredth explanation of how telepathic mutants feel, and too many characters for us to give a shit about anyone for any reason other than we recognize who they are supposed to be.  This movie made me feel tired.  It felt totally inconsequential outside of introducing the main team members we are used to like Jean Grey and Cyclops.  As though continuity matters whatsoever in these films any longer, we are now in our third decade within the reboot series and no one has aged a day somehow.  I've devolved into listing grievances because there just isn't anything to construct critically about a film this bland.  It absolutely is what it is and not an inch more. 

That isn't to say the entire film is worthless.  Magneto being a recluse with a wife and young daughter is a logical place for the character to be after being front page news in the previous film.  Their loss when the small town they live in realize who he is is well executed, even if it unfortunately lead to Magneto joining Apocalypse somewhat illogically and being partially responsible for the deaths of thousands.  Likewise, Mystique being a kind of mutant icon after saving the president in the last film takes on an interesting plot element.  The mutant youth of the 80s look up to her as a way for them to not just be freaks, but freaks with a purpose, and it plays well into the cultural outlook on the mutant issues plaguing their world.  It also plays well into Mystique's character, who previously had wanted to be accepted as she naturally looks, and when the proper context occurs and she is regarded as a hero in her true form, she constantly fights to shrug it off, feeling the untruth in the myth built around her.  Other characters are done okay, like Cyclops, who you see build leadership qualities in an organic way, or Quicksilver, who, though isn't as great as in Past, is still played wonderfully here by Evan Peters, but it never reaches even close to the character heights of even the middling X-Men entries. 

Summing up this review is incredibly difficult because it isn't much of a review at all.  It is a tired, heavy sigh from someone expecting to be disappointed, and wishing that he was more disappointed by what he got.  Be anything but boring, they say.  This is boring.



5.5