Review of X-Men: Apocalypse Full Movie

Review of X-Men: Apocalypse Full Movie: It can easily say that the film restricts Tenderized insult to this type of support in the speed and accuracy of their courtship that there is no excuse to leave it alone. At the hotel, each of us has a defect in the definition. Robert (John C. Reilly) has a Lisp, for example, and John (Ben Whished) has a slack. John is so desperate for a man, a woman nosebleed, which affects his schnozzle to draw blood, and then cheat to accept as a match to have met elsewhere. As for David, he moved to discover that the woman in the forest, because he is short-sighted. Why not look to the future together?

But all this is carefully done and Whished is particularly dry "lobster" is more of a satire on the dating game. It deepens the loss in the condition of our most tender feelings. Even when David and his partner turned out to be short-term soul mates relationship that brings a little joy.

I have had absolutely no interest in seeing this film. I love Bryan Singer's ability to tell stories, especially in the first two X-Men films, but the look of Apocalypse and his voice have just looked plain silly, as have the effects of Magneto and Angel's fight scenes. They looked way too green screened and cartoony. Yet, I am a sucker for comic book movies, so I went anyway. The first 30 minutes were abysmal. The writing, editing, cramming of the story, etc. just made it an immensely boring film. Very un-Bryan Singer-like. However, the rest of the movie, specifically when Quicksilver makes his entrance, was well done. 

I'm reaching a point in these films where stories are coming from books I had stopped reading, so some of it is quite new. Apocalypse was introduced in X-Factor in the late 80s, one of the last comic books I would buy before giving up that hobby in high school. Archangel, originally Angel (Warren Worthington III), was altered to become one of Apocalypse's Four Horsemen, which really kind of bored me and contributed to me leaving the comic book world. However, I liked his character in the movie, though there was no discussion about his rich-boy backstory. As one of the original X-Men, I expected more for Angel. Alas, it was not to be. 

Let me get the superficial stuff out right now. I have a crazy crush on Sophie Turner. I am a sucker for good-looking redheads and she was smoking-ass hot in this film. I don't watch Game of Thrones, but have seen a couple of episodes and knew her prior to the movie. While she doesn't look anything like Famke Janssen, the original "Jean," she was very good cast. The reveal of her Phoenix alter-ego was AWESOME. The fanboy in me was very pleased, especially after Brett Ratner's ridiculous X-Men 3, which was made fun of in this film in a not-so-subtle manner. The short Wolverine component to the story is weaving all of the Fox-centered "X-Stories" together very well.

Jackman was in full berserker mode and wore his "Weapon X" attire, which had never been seen before this film. The post-credits scene is tying the Weapon X program into Mr. Sinister and Deadpool quite well. Knowing that Cable is forthcoming in Deadpool 2 is seeming very natural now. Good job, Bryan Singer. I still have a fundamental problem with the bi-polar nature of how they present Magneto. Yes, he's a bit of an anti-hero in the comics, but he's had his pure evil moments. Seeing him bounce from extreme to extreme in the films is getting boring. I also don't like Mystique's "good" component. She is not an X-Man. 

She's certainly not a teacher at Xavier's school. Conversely, she was never a quiet sub-character either, as portrayed in the first 3 films by Rebecca Romijn. To me, they've never gotten her right. Jennifer Lawrence is closer, but again, not as a good guy. This is why I loved the subtle inclusion of Caliban, one of the founders of the underground Morlocks, which played a tiny part in helping bring Apocalypse's Four Horsemen together. This was interesting because Caliban played a "Fifth Horseman" in the comics, as Death and Pestilence. As I mentioned, the movies are getting to a level where I stopped reading the comics so much of this will start to be new to me. However, what made the last 75% of the film a good one was the inclusion of all of those "X-Factor" components. Again, I never thought I'd see the day when these things were brought to the big screen in such a big budget way. It's definitely a "wow" moment for me. 

My only real complaint about the film, though, is it is showing me that this genre, which may be in the process of becoming tiresome to mainstream audiences, is finally becoming a bit tiresome to comic fans. Fox cannot get sloppy like it did in the first 25% of this film, and just assume we will like whatever you put on the screen. The rush job and poor story development mattered. It also mattered in last year's reboot of Fantastic Four. It also mattered in DC's Batman v. Superman. The story still matters. In fact, the ability to tell that story cinematically is more important than ever. Batman Begins, Dark Knight and many of Marvel's films are setting the bar very high. These studios need to keep up that level or these movies will start to die.

By far the biggest, funnest, most colorful and exciting X-Men movie ever made. Bryan Singer clearly wants to outdo himself each time he directs an X-Men movie, and he has totally succeeded. The only problem is it might be too much, because it doesn't work structurally half as well as its predecessor Days of Future Past. But mark my words, this is the quintessential X-Men movie, jampacked with everything a fanboy would dream of. While the film's strength lies in the development of characters like Jean Grey and Cyclops, with their romance as well as Professor X and Moira McTaggert, there is a problem of overdevelopment, the franchise rushing to get to a familiar place too soon. Most notably is Jean Grey embodying the Phoenix, which if you don't get, you won't watching the movie, because it's never explained why she grows from nothing to so powerful that fire spews from her body and she can walk on air. 

I also love the character Apocalypse and how well he was played by Oscar Isaac. I applaud the production for using practical makeup effects and avoiding digital characters; it gives him weight, presence, and real power. But I kind of wish he just appeared, because I didn't care for his backstory, which took too much time at the onset of the film - I would've put the whole thing on the cutting room floor and axed it. Another reason to cut the backstory is that you now have the responsibility of assembling the Four Horsemen, which requires an origin story for each character. 

There simply isn't enough room in this movie to have so many origin stories, including a new, and quite possibly third version of Wolverine. Too many origins simply never worked and the characters, especially Psylocke and Angel, were weaker for having to be assembled. I'd rather Apocalypse show up with the Four Horsemen and get the show started. If half the movie is about him developing a team, why shatter it so quickly? An assembled team allows you the luxury of making this a satisfactory one-off villain. I also found Magneto's new life to be overly melodramatic and unnecessary for an established villain. How many times is Magneto going to go back-and-forth between good guy and bad guy? It's getting annoying, and this movie changes him at least three times, which is inconsistent with his ending from DoFP.

One impressive performance came from a young man whose shoes I would never want to step in, replacing franchise fan favorite Alan Cumming in the role of Nightcrawler. Suffice to say the young man exceeded expectations. But my favorite role goes to Ty Sheridan as Cyclops,- the character's justice has finally been done on screen. All due respect to James Marsden, they had a lot of trouble connecting that character with audiences. But Sheriden is born to be behind those glasses, breathing new and needed life into the major protagonist.

These are tough films to make, lots and lots of characters, and competing with the MCU and Justice League, they are forced to balance screen time with all these superpowered mutants. It's a tough ensemble, and I'm always wondering when it will get to be too much and topple on itself. This had a chance to show that you can do it perfectly, by not overdeveloping. It's crazy to think there could be overdevelopment when logically more cast means the result will be underdevelopment - that's essentially what happens to characters who get so much less screentime than other major characters; development at all seems unnecessary. 

So that balance wasn't perfectly achieved, but I saw the potential. By all technicality, the first Avengers achieves greater harmony, but they have far fewer characters, and I am a sucker for X-Men, so this is the better movie. Doesn't really matter, they all face world-shattering threats, a scenario that I'm also exhausted with. Can't we ever threaten one character and their livelihood? Just once I want to see a movie where the greatest threat is destroying Professor X, and everyone works as a team to save him for all he's done. Deadpool works on this level more, but it went too far in that extreme by presenting a lame villain. How about a colorful villain who's greatest threat is destroying one man? Silva in Skyfall is a terrorist who destroys many lives, but he's only taking out innocent lives and locations to draw out M from her stronghold, he doesn't need the world. And for anything that spews out of Marvel, the world is not enough (yea I know Bond was in the last sentence), it becomes galaxies and extra dimensions. It's fargone. 

This film is entertaining, gripping, and very emotional, but I worry for the future. I hope they can scale back and not lose sight of their core characters and what these stories mean to them more personally. X-Men is teetering, but it's still holding strong. And Magneto could use a rest, he's due. Would hate to lose Fassbender, his performance is never anything but the best, but he seems to have walked out of the picture for now and should be saved for a third act resurgence, some pivotal cameo, at the end of the next chapter.

X-Men: Apocalypse Official Trailer