X-Men: Apocalypse

I have a confession to make.

Ever since the first preview for this film, X-Men: Apocalypse, I've been underwhelmed and fairly disinterested. After the fantastic Days of Future Past, I was getting the feeling that this one would fall short.

Couple that with the fact that the X-Men aren't necessarily my favorite franchise to begin with AND that 2016 is an insanely competitive year for superhero films.

You already had Deadpool and Civil War blow many out of the water, Batman v Superman could've been great but we all know what happened there, and we still have the Dear-Lord-please-please-please-let-it-be-good Suicide Squad, and the well-its-Marvel-so-chances-are-it-will-be-good Doctor Strange later in the year. Arguably, the "biggest" ones are now behind us as Apocalypse, Civil War, and BvS were the Big Three, but that still doesn't diminish the fact that this year is a very easy year to get forgotten or lost in the shuffle.

Now, I've read some others' reviews about Apocalypse and found them to be incredibly harsh, especially after now having seen it. This is by no means a bad movie, not even an average one. It's simply one that pales in comparison to it's predecessors and other films that beat it to the box office this year. It represents a film that's not quite sure how to make itself stand out in a crowd where that seems to be the theme. Deadpool was rated R. BvS was a superhero showdown and the DCEU kickoff. Civil War was another superhero showdown with a lot of other players. Suicide Squad looks to let the villains have their day in the limelight. Doctor Strange, oddly enough, looks to be like a somewhat basic origin story with magic involved. Clearly, all of those films have their specific uniqueness this year, so if you were to ask me what Apocalypse has that's "new" or "different", I'm hard pressed to give you an answer.

"I didn't enjoy The Hunger Games! And now you shall die!"

"We could really use a direwolf about now..."

Apocalypse picks up a decade after the events of DoFP as Charles Xavier is now running a successful school for the gifted and its the 80s. Everything seems to be going along swimmingly until an ancient mutant who has amassed powers throughout the millennia awakens. After a shockingly violent opening, with one death that is most certainly R-rated but pretty awesome, we learn the groundwork for the character of Apocalypse. And honestly, it's just not all that interesting. He's another villain who believes himself a God and that the only way to improve the world is to cleanse it through total destruction. Thinking forward, it makes me a tad nervous for Thanos in the upcoming Infinity War films and I hope Marvel can give him some unique motivation other than just "cleanse the weak human race". Where Apocalypse does better is with the plight of Erik/Magneto and Charles/Professor X. Yes, their constant debate about the good vs. evil in man is quickly wearing thin seeing as how this is the 6th film to discuss the topic, but Magneto's story is legitimately tragic this time around as he legitimately tried to be a good person, and start a family, but that's all taken away from him. So while this is a moral discussion we've seen before, it does have a little more weight behind it this time to still make us care. Less interesting is all the setting up the film does in order to eventually match up with the original trilogy. New characters are introduced, but the amount of aligning this film does to eventually equal those other films is a bit obvious.

The cast of Apocalypse remains as great as ever though. Jennifer Lawrence, James McAvoy, and Michael Fassbender still remain the heavy hitters and they bring a level of complexity to their characters that many comic book films simply can't achieve. Oscar Isaac does about as well as Apocalypse as one could hope with only having a script spouting about "false Gods". Evan Peters is back as Quicksilver and once again is a major highlight (more on that later). And there are many new faces with Sophie Turner (aka Sansa Stark) being my favorite as Jean Grey. She fits in well with the others and she's a solid dramatic actress when the time calls for it -- good selection by the casting crew.

Once again, one of the best scenes of the year

Apocalypse zooms along from scene to scene as there are a lot of chess pieces to get in place. I never found it to feel disjointed really, but it still is an overlong film by about 20 minutes. A particular cameo felt awfully shoehorned in to set up the next X-Men film and I think it probably could have been cut all together. That aside, the film is generally enjoyable from an action and comedy perspective. It tries a little to hard for some of its laughs, with some of them falling painfully flat, but there are moments it soars too in this regard. Same too with the action. Scenes of destruction have become commonplace in this genre and Apocalypse probably bests all others when it comes to body count. There are some good fights here and there, but given all the different powers these mutants have, they also tend to fight one-on-one a lot, resulting in a lack of power combinations like we saw in the previous film and in Civil War's phenomenal airport scene. But...Apocalypse has Quicksilver. And Quicksilver's "rescue" scene is not only great, it's probably the year's best scene snuggled tightly behind that aforementioned Civil War one. It's a great blend of humor, special effects, characterization, music, and superpowers, and is just insanely memorable.

Really when it comes down to it, Apocalypse is a superhero film that almost hindered itself for releasing too late, if that makes any sense. As I spoke to earlier, this is a year where most of these comic book movies have their particular selling point. Apocalypse, while not a bad movie, ends up being probably one of the more forgettable ones because it's so much of what we've seen before.

CONS:

• Generic all things considered. I won't go into the whole explanation again, but this one doesn't do much to distinguish itself from the crowd
• Apocalypse is a fair villain. His powers are intimidating, but his purpose and script are bland
• Overlong
• Spends a decent amount of time trying to "match" to where the original trilogy is
• Though cool, I felt the major cameo was shoehorned in there
• Some of the humor falls flat
• Psylocke seems like she could be an awesome villain but is given very little screen time
• Action scenes that don't take advantage of combining powers

PROS:

• As always, these X-Men films have stellar casts. I can't quite think of any weak links here and the heavy hitters continue to bring a lot of gravitas to the characters
• Magneto's storyline/plight
• Quicksilver and his rescue scene are pretty much perfect
• Outstanding special effects
• A few particularly grotesque kills
• Great soundtrack and good original score
• Fun 80s vibe and some good humor to go along with it
• Entertaining, if only for a one-time view

Rath's Review Score: 7.5/10