Film Review

X-Men: Apocalypse Review

Published

10 years ago

May 19, 2016

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Lacking Real Power

♦Tripwire’s Senior Editor Andrew Colman went to see Fox’s latest mutant extravaganza, director Bryan Singer’s X-Men: Apocalypse

X-Men: Apocalypse
Director: Bryan Singer
Stars: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Oscar Isaac

It’s episode nine of Singer’s X-saga, and our ensemble of angst-ridden, photogenic adolescents are on the mutant runway, preparing to take off once again for another rites of passage ritual, this time featuring a stony looking malefactor keen on the usual planet obliteration. You might be excused if spandex fatigue was beginning to set in, what with two event movies (Batman vs Superman, Captain America: Civil War) having already pummelled our senses this year, but market forces being what they are, not to mention studio competitiveness, it’s party time once again in what is set to be a bumper year for mainstream genre cinema.

Singer’s blurb, I mean brief, regarding the objectives for this instalment, which apparently “addresses historical mutant-cy, meaning the deep past, mutant origins and things like that” does seem somewhat evasive and nebulous, but it’s not as if we don’t know exactly what’s in store – and on this occasion, it’s a virtual remake of the previous chapter, X-Men: Days Of Future Past. Unlike Marvel Studios’ Avengers franchise, which at least features super-heroes with a moderate patina of individualism, the X-Men canon has gradually drifted into a blur of underdeveloped, mawkish plot devices, I mean characters, taking it in turns to look apprehensive while they exhibit their powers.

Apart from the time paradox element that underpinned episode eight, it’s all standard fare for our mutant youth – this time round, we have Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac), deemed to be the very first mutant according to Marvel mythology, whose sole purpose in the movie is to growl, assemble minions, and destroy and then immediately rebuild the world. Having been dormant for eons in an Egyptian tomb, he requires approximately five minutes in downtown Cairo to conclude that the entire planet is not to his liking, and therefore it must be annihilated. I guess it makes sense considering his name. He then proceeds to track down several mutants who will serve as his “Four Horsemen” (just in case you missed that) – the recently bereaved Magneto, Psylocke (Olivia Munn), Storm (Alexander Shipp) and Archangel (Ben Hardy), who he then imbues with heightened powers in order to presage the err, apocalypse. Meanwhile there’s Raven, or rather Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), who rescues teleporting goblin Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee) from penury, and then returns to Westchester to meet Xavier and new recruit Scott Summers. They, along with Quicksilver (Evan Peters) get captured by William Stryker (Josh Helman), the mutant-loathing demagogue from the previous film. They escape his compound with some help from Weapon X (you know who), locate Apocalypse and lo and behold, it’s game over.

As a spectacle, it’s occasionally polished – the opening sequence, featuring Apocalypse’s burial, is particularly well done, as is Scott Summers’ training. Aside from that and a few choice one-liners, the film resembles a Saturday morning cartoon with the obligatory high production values and state of the art SFX. Everything is shorthand – aside from earth’s quickly forgotten near-demise we learn practically nothing about what motivates the antagonists, especially Magneto, whose need to bugger up his own planet is too out of kilter, even for him. And then there’s the minor players, such as Psylocke and Storm, who barely have any lines to work with. Which brings us to the script, which is brimming, nay chockful, of grim clichés – there are far too many telegraphed, cheesy epigrams, many of which we’ve heard far too often, coupled with dialogue more suited to an early ‘70s episode of Doctor Who. Indeed, McAvoy would make a better Doctor than Professor X, such is his wholesome, nuance-free turn.

There are palpable relationships in evidence, certainly, such as the one between Xavier (James McAvoy) and Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne), or between Scott Summers (Tye Sheridan) and Jean Grey (Sophie Turner), but the filmmakers correctly decided to pare down that component (to the extent that Xavier erased MacTaggert’s memory of their time together) as it’s all a bit half-baked in any case, and besides, there really just isn’t time. Even the sparring match between old adversaries Xavier and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) goes through the motions, their eventual reconciliation silly and tacked on (did we all just forget how much destruction was wreaked by the master of magnetism?).

This film is arguably the archetypal exemplar of the law of diminishing returns – all of the pieces are in place from the previous chapter, so let’s rearrange them a bit, throw in a fan favourite super-villain who is steeped in smug megalomania, throw in the odd amusing cameo (Wolverine, Stryker) and rake in the megabucks. Yes, you might say, the monthly pamphlets on which the film is based are reliant on comforting, endlessly episodic familiarity and, in Stan Lee’s words, “the illusion of change”, but this is cinema, and Singer’s contribution is rapidly becoming so inflexible that it’s virtually a sub-genre of its own.

On the plus side, there’s Oscar Isaac, whose turn is rudimentary enough but highly impressive when you recall that this is the same man who lit up the screen playing the lead role in the Coen’s downbeat and moody Inside Llewyn Davis. Now there’s range for you. As for the rest of the slumming thesps, such as the undoubtedly talented Fassbender and McAvoy, credit indeed for not phoning it in, despite having so little to work with. Maybe they could press Mr. Singer for a better script next time, not to mention losing twenty minutes of padding, while leaving out Cerebro and the usual mind-games malarkey (enough already!!). The Dark Phoenix story arc is likely to be optioned for the next mega-kerfuffle. Let’s hope chances are taken if that hallowed tale gets the green light.