Is X-Men: Apocalypse the big screen stinker of a comic book adaptation that everyone keeps saying it is? Well, yes, and no, says Ian Goodwillie.
In a blockbuster season packed with sequels, adaptations, and reboots, many of them based on comic books, it takes a lot to stand out. And 2016 is a harder nut to crack than ever after crushing box office hits like Deadpool, Captain America: Civil War, and, to a lesser extent, Batman v. Superman. Enter the latest installment of Fox’s mainstay comic book movie franchise, X-Men: Apocalypse.
This time around, it’s 1983 and things have been relatively peaceful for 10 years. Xavier’s school is flourishing. Magneto has gone dark. The world appears to be accepting mutants. Well, superficially and only to a limited extent. Vaguely tolerating might be more accurate than accepting.
Then, Moira MacTaggert accidentally lets out Apocalypse, one of the world’s first and most deadly mutants, and all Hell breaks loose.
Apocalypse is a straight up summer blockbuster explosion fest. The story lacks the balanced depth of Civil War or the cohesiveness of Deadpool. It’s a little more reminiscent of the sloppy narrative in Batman v. Superman. There’s almost too much going on in this film at times, too many mutants doing too many different things. This movie times out at almost two and half hours, which is just too much for a superhero film. And that includes any of the previously mentioned movies with run times longer than two hours.
The overall timeline has also gotten so convoluted after Days of Future Past that it’s hard to tell what fits where anymore. The rules of this possibly new narrative are hard to discern. Did the X-Men meet Nightcrawler for the first time in X2? Or is it decades earlier in this movie? There also appears to be two completely different winged Angels, one in X3 and one in Apocalypse. And while Wolverine’s appearance is a superb call back to the comics, it just added time to the movie and really confused Jean Grey’s place in the movie version of Logan’s development.
Oddly enough, this convoluted timeline is true to the X-Men comics in a way. The constant time bending and use of alternate realities has made their overall narrative virtually incomprehensible even if you have read it all regularly since the 1960s. In that way, the movies now reflect the comics.
While many of the characters in this film are shallow and one dimensional, probably because there are too many of them to develop each one correctly, Quicksilver once again steals the show. Unlike everyone else in the film who is devoted to either saving the world or destroying it, Quicksilver is driven by a desire to connect with a father that doesn’t know he exists. There’s actually more to this character than being drawn into the same good/evil archetype. That alone makes him engaging but he also offers the core source of levity in what is otherwise a bleak film.
Alternatively, Magneto is driven by the most conventional and clichéd of reasons. He becomes Magneto because of the death of his mother. He returns to being Magneto in this movie when his wife and daughter are killed. These are female characters who exist only to be sacrificed to Magneto’s arc. And this is particularly pointless in Apocalypse.
When Apocalypse recruits Angel, Psylocke, and Storm to be part of his team of Horsemen, he pretty much just asks them and they’re in. Frankly, they agree to this whole ‘kill most of humanity’ thing with relatively little coaxing and quite quickly. Magneto, on the other hand, apparently required the unnecessary death of his family and a field trip to Auschwitz to convince him to jump in. This is the guy who has taken a very anti-human stance in the past but he required a significant amount of coaxing to join the new anti-humanity team. And as unnecessary as the death of his wife and daughter are, the trip to Auschwitz is even more gratuitous. If you want to see the definition of awkward in a comic book film its people in ludicrous costumes milling about the remains of Auschwitz until one of them levels it.
The reality is that none of this was necessary. They could have easily just had Apocalypse give Magneto a three-minute speech to convince him to do exactly what he’s always wanted to do and the audience would have been perfectly fine with that. Plus, cutting all the scenes relating to his dead family and Auschwitz would have saved at least 20 to 30 minutes of time.
Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, and James McAvoy are all great again in this film. It’s a hard not to enjoy their performances as they’ve got great on screen chemistry. A story that really focuses in on all three together would be very interesting. And Olivia Munn did a solid job as Psylocke but she needed more screen time to develop the character. She’s basically just a set piece in this movie, which is far less than she could have been. If they ever seriously attempt an X-Men film universe or TV series, she would be a good headliner.
As long as it is, as unfocused as it is, and as incomprehensible as it can be, Apocalypse is still at least a solid big screen watch. Just really don’t think about it too much. Movie-goers have just been spoiled by big screen gold like Deadpool and Civil War. Set your sights a little lower than that and you’ll be fine.