X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) Reviews

• Apocalyptically bad

  realmuthaf2016-05-20

  I personally thought Days of the Future Past to be the best of the series. And as it turns out, Apocalypse is the worst one to date. The only bright spot in all the awfulness is Quicksilver, whose slo-mo scene is at least as good as in the previous movie, if not better. Other than that, everything else goes from mediocre to outright terrible. The main villain's motivation is bland and stupid. (Yeah, he just wants to kill everyone and rule the world.) The way he "persuades" other mutants to join him is absolutely unbelievable - he basically just offers to increase a mutant's power and in return demands help to kill billions of people. Sounds like a fair deal. What's offputting is that the extent to which he augments his followers' powers is not constant. Like, Magneto gains the power to control pretty much all the metal on the planet at once, while Psylocke gains another special effect on her CGI laser beams or whatever it is that she emits. Apocalypse's abilities in general are largely undefined - at times he is shown pulling matter from objects around him to construct something, and then in the next shot he just makes solid objects like armor out of thin air. Another ridiculous thing was that they tried to make Isaac more intimidating by giving him thick soles so that he'd look taller, which is noticeable. What is more, his lines are cringe-worthy, but the problem is, so are everyone else's. Same boring cliché dialogues like "It's your home. We will help. Join us, Eric. I see good in you." Yeah, forgiving Magneto like it's nothing after he helps to kill millions of people and destroy entire cities is included in the package. Also, he changes his mind about the whole "destroy the world" thing after Mystique tells him for the 100th time that he is her family and she still sees good in him. Some of the characters' looks are still beyond ugly. I can actually see why they chose to try to keep the Beast and Mystique in their human forms more, except for saving the actors from the extensive make-up procedures. The thing is, these characters look absolutely god-damn atrocious and are painful to watch. I mean, Lawrence is annoying and redundant when she is on screen anyway, but when she is also blue, it just becomes vomit-inducing. Recent 2016 comic-book blockbusters also did not enjoy good scripts, but at least they had high-quality gripping action scenes. This is not the case here, as fighting is mostly goofy and bland, and at times it is clearly visible by the actors' motions that they are being pulled by the strings. Or being drawn in cheap CGI. This is actually sad. Singer's previous movie, DotFP, was outstanding. The recent Deadpool, who ostensibly shares the universe with the X-men, was awesome. And now we get a horrible, outrageously stupid and pretentious CG-overdosed mess. Let's hope the next one will be better.

• moral turpitude

  realintheory2016-10-11

  Wait a minute.. just wait a minute... A bloke with superpowers does a lot of damage.. sees the light.. tries to be a good bloke in Poland.. tries to help someone.. gets found out.. wife and kid are efficiently skewered by a single arrow.. he gets all moody and turns into a bad bloke... Then.. this bad bloke with boiling blood.. murders millions of people .. MILLIONS .. as he redesigns planet Earth by uprooting thousand of buildings and crushing MILLIONS of poor saps stuck between the basement and the penthouse. Then he has a change of heart and becomes a good bloke again.. and the other good bloke says... 'See.. I knew you had a nice side' Then he walks away with a fetching Irish grin. The wailing of the MILLIONS of bereaved seem to go unheard. Rubbish.

• A Gripping but Flawed X-Men Movie

  ssangams2016-06-06

  X-Men: Apocalypse is the sequel to Days of Future Past and takes place about a decade later in the '80s. This movie entertained me from start to finish and I can't say I was ever bored. But there are a lot of things I was not satisfied with while watching. Starting off with the good, Magneto and Professor X continue to be the best parts of these movies. Michael Fassbender as Magneto is amazing and he has a really emotional scene towards the beginning which got me locked into the film. James McAvoy is also great as Xavier. The internal battles inside Xavier's head were riveting. I really liked the new cast of the younger X-Men, like Jean Grey, Storm, Nightcrawler, and Cyclops. Quicksilver has another awesome scene just like the previous movie. The action is handled very well for the most part. The first half of the movie is terrific, but the second half brings it down. Apocalypse as the villain was OK for me. Some scenes worked well and others didn't. I was always skeptical of Oscar Isaac as Apocalypse and I still don't think he was the best choice. He is just like Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor for me. Apocalypse is also a small mutant compared to the others for some reason and he's just another villain who is obsessed with destroying the world, and his motivations are thin. Jennifer Lawrence was a boring Mystique. She just seems uninspired throughout the run-time and becomes tedious since she uses the personality over and over again to play the character. Some mutants were completely wasted here with Psylocke and Angel. There's an entire sequence in a secret lab and it seemed there for only one reason: the cameo of a specific person. While it was fun to watch, it didn't do much of anything for the story in the long run. The entire thing could have been removed and the movie would have been the same. The final battle felt underwhelming with the whole global extinction. The problem is they don't show any civilians dying; it's just buildings coming apart, making it hard to care about the situation. Overall, X-Men: Apocalypse is a disappointing sequel to First Class and Days of Future Past. But it is not at all a bad movie. Magneto and Professor X are once again great, Apocalypse is a mixed bag, the pacing for the movie is all over the place, and the dull second half just brings the film down from the really good first half. X-Men: Apocalypse gets a B-.

• Screw Rotten Tomatoes this movie is as fantastic as it could get

  livethefloyd2016-05-10

  Okay, this is already the fourth superhero film we have gotten so far this year. The fact that it's this good blows my mind, it's the sixth entry in the main X-Men series, and it might be the third best after X2 and Days of Future Past. Oscar Isaac gives an outstanding performance as the mutant menace: Apocalypse, he was the highlight of the film right next to Fassbender's Magneto (who never fails to deliver). In a year with pathetic and disappointing superhero film villains so far, Apocalypse gives us the layered and threatening performance we want from our villains. Evan Peters returns as Quicksilver once more to give us an amazing scene that tops the one from Days of Future Past. The newcomers are fantastic and exciting and we will certainly see them again in the future. They also finally got Cyclops right! Forget about Rotten Tomatoes and go see this film opening weekend, you won't regret!

• good with a couple of problems

  SnoopyStyle2016-06-05

  En Sabah Nur is Apocalypse, the first mutant who ruled ancient Egypt until he was entombed. It's the 80's. CIA agent Moira MacTaggert goes to Egypt and witnesses his emergence. He recruits his four horsemen Magneto, Storm, Psylocke, and Angel giving them greater power. Meanwhile, Raven recruits Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler from an East Berlin fight club. Alex Summers brings his younger brother Scott to Professor Charles Xavier's school. Quicksilver arrives at the school just in time to rescue almost everybody from an explosion but Professor X is kidnapped by Apocalypse. I really like the first half. There are some good introduction of the new characters. It's working fine for the most part. It hits the pinnacle with Quicksilver's rescue which is funny and exciting. It is visually dynamic and a joy to behold. The rest of the movie feels like a long slow slide into mediocrity. The most troubling problem for the continuing franchise is the use of Mystique as the leading X-Men. That character has never been in that role. JLaw is struggling to put out the intensity to match the central part. She and her character is not up to the task so far. It's also funny that her powers is to not be JLaw. The other problem is Apocalypse. I hoped for better but his mega-destruction is underwhelming. It's a lot of bland and his powers are nebulous. I actually think it would have been better to allow Apocalypse to be a two-parter. As an one-and-done villain, he isn't allowed to be anything more than a monster of the moment. With a lower level of power from him, it could be more compelling to struggle for the soul of each horseman. As it stands, the character Apocalypse is nothing special.