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Not Perfect, But Still X-Men


          Just going to come right out and spoil it, Deadpool does not join the X-Men in this movie.
          In a world where Marvel and DC both have vying cinematic universes of superheroes, the X-Men series is an anomaly. They’ve had some bad films (this one especially pretending that X-Men Origins: Wolverine never happened) but have lasted sixteen years and managed a degree of success. X-Men: Apocalypse is coming so soon on the heels of Captain America: Civil War though, that it’ll be tough to beat; which is a shame because it’s not a bad movie. Is it good?
          The very first mutant (Oscar Isaac -never actually referred to as Apocalypse) awakens from his centuries-long entombment at the dawn of the 80’s and plans on destroying humankind. He assembles‘Four Horsemen’ to help him carry it out, one of whom is of course Magneto (Michael Fassbender) who’s been hiding under a false identity since the events of the last film and recently lost his family at the hands of humans. Meanwhile Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) is freeing mutants on her own and Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) is overseeing a new crop of students begin their studies at his school, but he ends up getting tied into Apocalpyse’s plot and the X-Men have to reassemble to save the world.
          The film juggles a lot of different storylines from Magneto’s anguish and Apocalypse’s rising, to Mystique’s travels and even Xavier reconnecting with an old flame Moira (Rose Byrne). Interestingly though, the storyline I liked best was focussed on the young mutants who would go on to head up the famous X-Men team. The stories do come together but at a slow pace and with some distractions. There’s one major diversion that’s completely unnecessary and did nothing for the plot but provide an excuse to give Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine a cameo. Apocalypse himself is at times a very threatening villain, but he’s not interesting. Isaac’s decent but he’s kind of de-clawed by the fact that though he has the power to manipulate matter he never uses it when he can. The film also tries to throw in some humour by making Xavier awkward around Moira which doesn’t quite fit. But it is offset particularly by one scene where Quicksilver comes to the mansion during a major crisis and easily one-ups his awesome scene from Days of Future Past.
          Evan Peters is really good as Quicksilver, in fact a lot of the cast is. McAvoy and Fassbender are among the best actors working today and though Magneto’s tragic story is pretty obvious, though we’ve seen him toe the line of good and evil a lot, Fassbender alone keeps it engaging. The same can’t be said for Mystique. There’s a lot of focus on her which doesn’t take away from the story but she’s clearly spotlighted just because of Lawrence’s celebrity. Adding insult to injury is the fact Lawrence isn’t trying very hard in this movie, which is unfortunate given her talent. It’s also irritating that she looks human throughout in contrast to her characters proudly mutant philosophy just so we can see more of Lawrence’s face. Byrne is mostly useless in this film and though the performance is fine, the make-up on Nightcrawler is awful. But Tye Sheridan I think is excellent as Cyclops, Game of Thrones’ Sophie Turner is jarring at first as Jean Grey but does grow on you, and Nicholas Hoult is still very good as Beast.
          If you’re a fan, there’s plenty of shout-outs, references, and hey, they even managed to put Jubilee in this movie. But there is some detriment in that as a number of plot developments feel derivative of previous films. In fact there’s even an exchange between Xavier and Magneto that’s taken verbatim from the first movie. Unlike the four prior good movies in this series, it doesn’t seem to feel confident enough in itself. Which we see in the final showdown which goes on too long. That being said without spoiling anything, the way it does end is classic X-Men and it as well as the final scene is amazing, really getting anyone who’s even had a mild interest in this series eager for where it goes next.
          X-Men is often credited with reviving the superhero genre and almost two decades later is still generally strong. There’s a lot to love about X-Men: Apocalypse, but also more than a few problems (that’s not even going into the continuity issues that have plagued this franchise since 2009). It’s not one of the series’ best films but it is mostly entertaining and leaves you craving to see these X-Men again. Maybe just without Mystique.
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