REVIEW: X-Men: Apocalypse (Mild Spoilers)

Team Fanboy from thefanboyseo.com dishes out their review for the film X-Men: Apocalypse. Starring James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence and Oscar Isaac. Directed by Bryan Singer and opens today!

Let me do most of this review and then let me quote the lads who also saw the movie last night from Gateway thanks to Pizza Hut and their new Blowout Pizza.

I really, really wanted X-Men: Apocalypse to be the “end all, be all” movie for the X-Men franchise but it falls short. Came into the IMAX theater with a mid to high level of expectation because holy heck X-Men: Days of Future Past was such an amazing movie.

The Good

There’s a number of good things about ‘Apocalypse’.

• Oscar Isaac’s acting shines even under that thick prosthetic and make up. There’s the guy from ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’ and ‘Ex Machina’ doing his thing and it’s good. But that’s a double-edged sword.
• Those costumes are awesome; between Magneto’s souped up costume to the film’s final moments featuring the official “X-Men” with their new costume, it’s fanservice.

• Alexandra Shipp’s version of Storm has an accent. That alone should be something. And it’s not Scarlet Witch accent that disappears from time to time. Every time she delivers a speech, she’s doing the accent. Just perfect in my book.
• THAT CAMEO!
• All hail House Stark for birthing Sansa Stark. Sophie Turner as Jean Grey was dope. Whether she’s mocking X3 or showing off her mutant powers, she’s really one of the best things the movie has to offer.

• There are a couple of funny moments here in the film and I’m not sure whether that was intentional or not.
• THAT QUICKSILVER MOMENT!
• It’s pretty divisive but as an X-Fan, I thought the post-credit scene proved too juicy and filled with so much potential.
• Fanservice also in the form of a team-up move with Archangel and Psylocke…

• Slow clap for Singer and the production crew for actually adding Metallica’s “Four Horsemen”. I’m putting this down because viewers who are not familiar with Metallica’s songs might miss the nod.
• A cool astral/ psychic plane finally.
• An even cooler team-up blast moment in the climax.
• I just realized that Fox and Marvel actually split up the Maximoff twins. Was that really their deal? The MCU gets Scarlet Witch while the Fox-verse gets Quicksilver? Cool and sad at the same time.
• Jennifer Lawrence is still a hottie.

• Also ironic that Jean gets to use her powers at full force in the same place where she dies years later.

The Bad

As I mentioned earlier, its filled with a few blips here and there. Also if we’re friends on Facebook, I did state that I am grudgingly giving X-Men: Apocalypse a certain score and these are the reasons that made me go with that apparent score.

• There were moments where the visuals sucked. Yeah, it was obviously CGI but crappy CGI gave those scenes cancer. 🙁
• Character subplots were either forced, contrived or confusing.
• The producers got their wish from ‘Days of Future Past’ and killed a certain X-Man. Won’t spoil who though.
• Speaking of dead X-Men, that certain X-Man’s death was shrugged. Seriously?! Why’d they shrug his death? Giving key characters a moment to mourn the death doesn’t qualify as “mourning”. There was never even mention at the end of that death.
• Another mutant who became one of Apocalypse’s horsemen appears in the movie. He’s got a different role, got a different look and it sucks. Seems like Fox isn’t done mucking around some characters to make it convenient. Sucks though as he could be a good character to work with Cable when he finally appears in Deadpool 2.
• That final battle was good but it could have been better. You’ll agree with me on this when you see the film.

• Seriously, Apocalypse powers up his Horsemen to some extent but they easily go down. Or maybe it really was just bad writing. I mean Angel (above) could have gone on a murderous rage and nobody in the team could stop him if you follow the story. But its not really there.
• Lessened yaoi moment between Charles and Erik.
• A couple of friends I spoke to after the screening complained that the third act suddenly became a “telenovela”.
• The scene with a certain Canucklehead felt for me was forced. Try to watch the movie a second time and zone out at the start of the Weapon X segment (not a spoiler because they already showed Wolverine in the trailers) and then zone in at the end and you’ll see that it didn’t seem to bring much to the overall story.

• There were also moments where they don’t seem to commit to the new timeline they established. Or they just forgot about continuity. There are a number of lines that contradict with what’s been established in the past movies.
• Character death.
• Stop force-feeding Stryker on us Singer! We know that you love X-Men: God Loves Man Kills aka X2 but move on please. Could we do a film without him please?

#TeamFanboy Comments:

Khrysler’s top Five moments and best things from the film:

VERDICT:

8/10

Like I said, I wanted X-Men: Apocalypse to be on level with BvS and Civil War but it just can’t on its own. The “ugh” moments were just as many as that “oohhh” moments. Also I recommend bringing back Matthew Vaughn (X-Men: First Class, Kingsman) to direct the next X-Men movie because he knows he’s willing to take risks as opposed to Singer’s “safe bet” approach.

X-MEN: APOCALYPSE IS NOW SHOWING!