The Marvel cinematic universe is a mess. Franchises are scattered between companies like Disney, Sony, and 20th Century Fox. Taking that into account, there’s bound to be Marvel movies that will be exactly that, a mess. Not every superhero movie can be the next “Avengers” movie. X-men: Apocalypse is one movie to prove that.
X-men: Apocalypse is technically the third X-men movie ever since the franchise was rebooted with X-men: First Class. While the future X-men are trying to adjust to their normal lives and perfecting their powers, an ancient mutant appears. The first mutant, Apocalypse, has returned and is trying to recruit the best mutants to help him rule the world.
Now right of the bat, the plot itself sounds a little dry. The villain wants to rule the world and the heroes have to stop him. Big deal. The drama this causes with certain characters is admittingly well executed even though the plot on its own is quite lacking.
It also takes longer to actually get invested in this movie. The beginning is very slow because the movie wants the audience to be familiar with Apocalypse. After a while you don’t care and want to move on. Once the film moves on with this long origin, the audience will feel much more into the movie.
Another problem people might have while watching this movie is the absence of some camera time of some characters. A new character that was introduced was Psylocke and she was shown a ton in the advertisements. One would think she would have some major part in the movie. Well what was shown in the trailers is what you get from her. She barely has any lines and doesn’t show anything new from her. This happened to a couple of other characters, but none as bad as Psylocke.
The biggest problem audiences might have with this movie is the main villain himself, Apocalypse. It was very hard to take him seriously. He was so over the top it made him look goofy. That should not be the right reaction audiences should have to a villain like this. One would expect Apocalypse to strike fear to anyone that even hears the name. His name literally means the end of the world. Once you see that he really is some loud, average heighted blue guy that acts like a toddler having a temper tantrum, you won’t be able to control your laughter.
This movie isn’t all bad though. The variety known with the X-men franchise is definitely there. Professor X, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Quicksilver, Mystique, Magneto, Storm; they are all there.If anybody stole the show, it would be Quicksilver. He may not be in the movie as much as others but man do you savor his screen time. The relationships between these characters feel authentic and accurate to their known personalities.
The dialogue is enthralling between each mutant. It really seems like a lot of effort went into how they interact with each other, while lacking tons of action that was expected. The angst and drama from the teenage mutants is believable, and the humor is spot on. There’s not much to complain about in this aspect.
Overall, this movie doesn’t live up to any expectation. There are tons of things lacking that could’ve easily been fixed. When the villain isn’t threatening with a name like Apocalypse, that’s usually a bad sign. Also when the audience doesn’t care about the movie in the first 45 minutes, it probably won’t get easier to watch.
