X- MEN: APOCALYPSE: NOT AS BAD AS THEY’LL TELL YOU
Genre: Action, Adventure,Fantasy
Director: Brian Singer
Screenplay: Simon Kinberg
CAST: Jeniffer Lawrence, James Mcavoy, Michael Fassbender, Rose Byrne, Oscar Isaac, Nicholas Hoult, Olivia Munn, Sophie Turner, Alexandra Shipp, Tye Sheridan, Kodi Smit Mchpee, Evan Peters, Lucas Till
144 mins
PG 13
Release date: 27 May 2016
Just two short months ago DC comics gave us the first superhero film of the year, Superman v Batman:Dawn of Justice. This film made a lot of money with audiences clamoring to see it, despite the advice of movie critics worldwide (including myself). We all couldn’t wait to see what Marvel had to offer for the year, personally I didn’t expect that they could do any worse than DC had already done.
Having already given us Deadpool in February as an appetizer for what was to come in this year, in the beginning of this month, they released their initial response. Captain America: Civil War has been widely regarded as a great piece of work, by both comic book fans and common audiences, and that was no mean feat. For a comic book based film to garner the adoration of both is their white whale; their unicorn. And they’ve already got it since the May 6 release. So one is forced to ask, why would they even bother with the next film they released? Wouldn’t it be rubbish in comparison to Captain America before even hitting theaters?
Fortunately those questions are all irrelevant because X Men is a franchise and a comic in its own right and shouldn’t be compared to Captain America. Also the two films have been released by two different studios, Walt Disney handling Captain America and X Men being handled by 20th Century Fox. So let’s put all petty assumptions and limitations to the side from the jump.
X-Men: Apocalypse is the third film in the prequel trilogy of the franchise, and was preceded by X Men: First Class and X-Men:Days of Future Past. It’s set in 1983, 10 years after the storyline in Days of Future Past hast taken place.
The storyline has an ancient all powerful mutant (Oscar Isaac) coming back to life and finding the world he once knew has changed, and now the normal people rule through structure and machines. He seeks to set this right by gathering a foursome of powerful mutants to follow him, and save the world by destroying it, and allowing the survivors of their apocalypse to be lead by him and other mutants. Professor X gets wind of it and together with his band of mutants at his school like Jeanne Grey ( Sophie Turner from Game of Thrones), some X-Men old hands like Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) and Beast (Nicholas Hoult), and Professor X’s former flame CIA agent Moira McTaggert (Rose Byrne), they try and put a stop to it and save the world from Armageddon.
This film was directed by Brian Singer who directed the previous two films in the trilogy and Valkyrie, and it shows. He brings the characters to life and the Visual effects are spectacular. Their really is no superlative that can quite represent the quality of the effects in this film.
As the villain Oscar Isaac’s character doesn’t have a lot of range, and sells his talents short. The new additions to the X-men prove to be quite worthy, and with such an accomplished cast, the characters did a great job. Unfortunately, if you’re watching this movie in isolation from the preceding parts of the trilogy you will feel like you’re floating when some of the returning characters have their few scenes together and the context of the emotions isn’t very well explained, but it won’t really colour your final opinion of the film. The humour injected into the flow of the dialogue by Quicksilver (Evan Peters), Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit- Mchpee) and Lucas Till (Havoc) is genuinely hilarious and pleasurable.
The few drawbacks are there are a few instances of cliché statements throughout, which I found mildly annoying. Also you know the outcome from the beginning, which takes away the suspense. However it is a very good movie, and one you should definitely head to theaters and see, despite what others might say.
3.9/5
M.K