X-Men: Apocalypse

http://www.foxmovies.com/movies/x-men-apocalypse

Before anyone points out to me that I have not written a review for Captain America: Civil War, I will just say that I was disappointed with the movie and have no intention of elaborating on that in a review at this time. It's the unpopular opinion as everyone on general consensus seemed to think it was the best Marvel movie yet and I'm tired of explaining why I don't agree with that. Let's just move on shall we?

I feel I should preface this review by saying I'm not a huge X-Men fan, although I have seen all of the X-Men movies (original trilogy and current trilogy) and all of the spin offs too (X-Men Origins Wolverine, The Wolverine and Deadpool). I liked the first X-Men, wasn't keen on X2 (again unpopular opinion) and to be honest I don't remember much about The Last Stand. I was not a fan of either of the Wolverine films as they contradicted each other, and the X-Men movies to date, and to be honest that kind of annoyed me. I had a lot of time for Deadpool, especially as Ryan Reynolds got to make it his way. Of the prequels, I enjoyed First Class but not enough to buy it, really liked Days of Future Past, and that brings us bang up to Apocalypse.

So why am I reviewing this movie when I'm much more invested in the MCU? Well, I felt I had more to say than would fit into a Facebook status update, that's why. Let's get the synopsis out of the way...

The Apocalypse of the title is the world's first mutant. Looked upon a something of a God because of the powers he possesses. Unlike other mutants, he can transfer his essence to other beings, therefore once his current body is all used up, he can put himself into a shiny new one. The great thing about this is that if the new body has abilities too, different to the ones he already possesses, he takes those on, this is why he's much more powerful than your average mutant. The opening sequence of the movie is the transference and then for reasons I won't spoil, Apocalypse has a bit of a snooze and wakes up in the 1980s. Which is where we pick up with our heroes after we left them in the 70s at the end of DOFP. Some are at Xavier's school for the gifted, some are off by themselves, helping mutants, or hiding their powers, and some are just discovering their powers. Ultimately they all come together, some on the side of Apocalypse, becoming his four horsemen, and others against him. Let battle commence.

Some of this movie works really well - Quicksilver's scene at the school is a film stealer for me, absolutely perfect - and some of it is distinctly average. I do feel as though the parts that work really well overall make the movie better than average, and I did enjoy it, and unlike Civil War I didn't come away disappointed. But that may be because unlike Civil War, my expectations weren't too high for this one.

As much as I hate to say it I think Oscar Isaac was this movie's downfall. He was catastrophically mis-cast in this movie. He's a fantastic actor, but this character needed to be physically and mentally menacing, all powerful, he needed to be a tall, hulking man, who made you feel nervous as to what he would do next, and unfortunately I just didn't ever feel like he was. Plus it was a travesty that they covered up his beautiful face with all those horrid prosthetics. Before you say that I am shallow, it does add credence to what I'm saying. Why even hire Oscar Isaac if you could have had anyone in that suit and they would have looked exactly the same? Hire a wrestler, hire a stuntman, what does it matter, no-one can tell who it is anyway?

Sadly I also felt like the ending was kinda predictable. I'm not usually the one that spots the plot twists in movies, but I saw the ending of this one coming a mile off. These are my only two bugbears with the movie but unfortunately they are kind of big ones. 

The rest of the movie worked fine, the new backstories for the characters we know and love were all decent, the film moves along at a good pace, the big scenes of destruction look great, but without a really good villain the whole thing leaves you wanting.

Finally, for those of a delicate disposition, I will warn you that although the film carries a 12a certificate, this comes with a warning of bloody images. There are at least five bloody/gory scenes which I can elaborate on in the comments if required.

Not a bad third film by any means, but it doesn't surpass DOFP and the villain leaves a lot to be desired. 6.5 out of 10. 

Viewing Date - 18th May 2016
UK Release Date - 18th May 2016

Cast Overview:

 James McAvoy ~ Charles Xavier

Michael Fassbender ~ Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto

Jennifer Lawrence ~ Raven/Mystique

Oscar Isaac ~ En Sabah Nur/Apocalypse

Nicholas Hoult ~ Hank McCoy/Beast

Rose Byrne ~ Moira McTaggert

Evan Peters ~ Peter Maximoff/Quicksilver

Josh Helman ~ Col William Stryker

Sophie Turner ~ Jean Grey

Tye Sheridan ~ Scott Summers/Cyclops

Lucas Till ~ Alex Summers/Havok

Kodi Smit-McPhee ~ Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler

Ben Hardy ~ Angel

Alexandra Shipp ~ Ororo Munroe/Storm

 Olivia Munn ~ Psylocke

Director ~ Bryan Singer

Writer(s) ~ Simon Kinberg (Screenplay and Story), Bryan Singer (Story), Michael Dougherty (Story), Dan Harris (Story).

X-Men: First Class

http://www.x-menfirstclassmovie.com/

One of my friends recently speculated that all of the films he was looking forward to seeing at the end of May/beginning of June would be underwhelming. Sadly, after seeing the three films he mentioned - Pirates 4, Hangover 2 and this - I have to confirm that his suspicions were correct. 

I will delve right into the synopsis and that way anyone who just wants to know what I thought can skip to the juicy stuff at the end. Though a word of warning, there are spoilers in my critique so beware if you're going straight to the bottom of the page.

X-Men: First Class is set in the mid 60's, a long time before the events of X-Men, X2 or X-Men: The Last Stand. As such, the characters featured in those movies are younger in this film (and therefore now played by different, younger actors) and leading very different lives. Some of the characters haven't yet had their lives intertwined with people or events we already know about.

So what's going on with this bunch then? Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender), who we will later know as Magneto, witnesses the murder of his mother just so his nasty German captor Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) can see what his mutant powers are capable of. This sets him on a path of revenge. It's during his first attempt to even the score with Shaw that he meets young Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and the two join forces with the CIA to stop Shaw before he starts WW3. Their allies include Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) who we'll later come to know as Mistique and a whole bunch of mutants we've never met before. And so follows a tug of war between the bad guys and the good guys until the final showdown.

I think this has been one of the hardest films for me to judge because there was lots that I liked about it, and in equal measure, lots I really didn't like.

Lets start with what I liked about it; I liked the backstories (for the most part) of the established characters, and the introduction of characters not formerly shown in previous X-Men movies, Sebastian Shaw, Moira MacTaggert, Emma Frost, Banshee, Riptide, Azazel, Angel and Darwin. I loved the casting of Jennifer Lawrence as Raven/Mistique, I cannot gush enough over how perfect I thought she was. I similarly loved seeing Nicholas Hoult in this movie but I should point out that this was more because it was great to see him in a big movie rather than because I thought he was well cast.

I thought for the most part that the cast was excellent. However, I did not feel that they were particularly suited to their roles. The two leads in particular, McAvoy and Fassbender, are both great actors, but neither should have been cast in their respective roles. See, the beauty in casting Jennifer Lawrence as Raven is that you can very easily imagine her becoming the character later (or earlier?) portrayed by Rebecca Romijn. You cannot however, picture either McAvoy or Fassbender becoming Patrick Stewart or Ian McKellan. Herein lies the problem as you don't ever really believe they are those characters.

My other problems with First Class lie in the backstory. I know I said I liked the backstories, and I did, to a certain extent. What I didn't like was how they manipulated facts or timeline that had already been established.

*Spoiler Alert*

In previous X-Men films it was established that Erik and Charles were bestest oldest buds before they became enemies yes? Well, in the First class re-write it turns out Erik and Charles barely knew each other a few months (if that) before Erik cripples Charles and becomes Magneto. Sound right? Mmm...

In the same way that Charles and Erik's friendship seems to have been manipulated to fit the story, the writers have also created a long standing, very close friendship between Charles and Raven. Now I'm sorry but if Charles and Raven had been as close as is indicated in this film, wouldn't that have come up at some point in the other movies? How betrayed he felt that she left him for Erik? How he missed her etc? No, okay then, lets move on. 

*Here endeth the Spoiler Alert*

Finally, how is it that we see Emma Frost as a young girl at the end of X-Men Origins: Wolverine (at the same time we see an older Patrick Stewart version of Professor X) and yet in X-Men: First Class which is obviously set before these events, Emma Frost is much older? Riddle me that First Class scriptwriters!

So all in all I was disappointed, not so much by the movie but by how little regard it had for the previous films? Maybe it's just because I'm not an expert on the comics but I'm going to be interested to see what my Marvel expert friends have to say about this installment of the X-Men films. 6.5 out of 10.

Viewing Date - 2nd June 2011

UK Release Date - 1st June 2011

Cast Overview:

James McAvoy ~ Charles Xavier

Michael Fassbender ~ Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto

Kevin Bacon ~ Sebastian Shaw

Rose Byrne ~ Moira MacTaggert

Jennifer Lawrence ~ Raven/Mystique

January Jones ~ Emma Frost

Nicholas Hoult ~ Hank McCoy/Beast

Caleb Landry Jones ~ Sean Cassidy/Banshee

Alex Gonzalez ~ Janos Quested/Riptide

Jason Flemyng ~ Azazel

Zoe Kravitz ~ Angel Salvadore

Edi Gathegi ~ Armando Munoz/Darwin

Lucas Till ~ Alex Summers/Havoc

Oliver Platt ~ Man in Black Suit

Director ~ Matthew Vaughn

Writer(s) ~ Ashley Miller (Screenplay), Zack Stentz (Screenplay), Jane Goldman (Screenplay), Matthew Vaughn (Screenplay), Sheldon Turner (Story) and Bryan Singer (Story)