Rejoice, for my X-Men have arrived!
Directed by: Bryan Singer
Written by: Bryan Singer, Simon Kinberg
Cast: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Oscar Isaac
Swift shot: I used to read X-Men as a kid, and I watched several of the cartoons on Saturday mornings before the Internet. Yes, I am that old! But when the original X-Men movies came out, they lacked something I couldn’t quite describe to my friends, just something manufactured and not as well developed as this new trilogy. This is the best X-Men film I have seen, because it did such a fine job of showcasing what the X-Men are all about to me. At their core they are a family of warriors.
I never read the Apocalypse story-line, but it wasn’t necessary to understand that great heroes need to defeat a mighty villain to become legends. You can’t ask for a more powerful antagonist than a being who thinks he is God. And, really, you can’t blame En Sabah Nur/Apocalypse (Isaac), because throughout thousands of years, humans have labelled him that, albeit with many different names. To Apocalypse, it is the natural order of things, worship him, and his mutant kind, and thrive. Fail to do that and perish. Apocalypse has made life pretty simple like that, but as he discovered in 3,600 B.C., with tyranny there is always resistance. It is the natural order of man to rebel against authority, well for civilized men anyway.
This is a group-building film about how the X-Men become more than just an odd gifted academy of mutants. This is how they become a team. And with that fact comes the requisite scenes where each character finds their way to Xavier (McAvoy) and his tutelage. With the assistance of Hank (Nicholas Hoult) who has chemically shed his blue skin and fur, Xavier is gathering up the mutants so that he can open his doors to gifted students of all varieties. Ultimately, he sees his school as a mecca for the enlightened where humans and mutants can thrive together. He sees Utopia. He isn’t being a realist, sadly, as time and again humanity has proven it fears what it can’t understand.
At first, Magneto (Fassbender) is content to live out of the spotlight of his troubled past, and is in hiding, in Poland raising a family and working (not so ironically) in a steel factory. Events transform him and as Xavier is gathering his group, Apocalypse finds Magneto more than willing to join as one of his horsemen. While they are never directly called the horsemen, it is evident that is what they are to Apocalypse. He’s just using them to subject humanity to their natural state of subservience. Apocalypse also recruits Storm (Alexandra Shipp), Angel (Ben Hardy), and Psylocke (Olivia Munn) into his climactic cavalry.
Meanwhile, the X-Men have picked up Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee), Cyclops (Tye Sheridan), and the always hilarious Quicksilver (Evan Peters) who becomes a pivotal member of the new group. You have to realize, when they all join up, they are under the impression they will just be students of a brilliant professor, they didn’t really sign on for a war, but that is exactly what Apocalypse has coming for them all. If you get in his way, he will just kill you. You are nothing to a god, just a speck of dust.
Along with the newest recruits, a young red head calls the academy her home, Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) who is an outcast even among the other students. She can’t control her powers and oddly enough, she frightens her friends, again, people fear what they don’t understand. But, Professor Xavier is working with her to control her powers, and she becomes quickly smitten with Cyclops. That isn’t the only love story peppered into the film, as you have CIA agent MacTaggert (Rose Byrne) returning to get Xavier involved in a very personal way. Another familiar face is Raven (Lawrence) as she returns to the academy and Hank. Raven also leads in the recruiting efforts throughout the film.
But there isn’t much time for frivolity, which is probably one of the major issues with X-Men: Apocalypse. Still, it makes sense, the world is literally being torn apart, the last thing on most people’s minds is romance. And speaking of world rending action, wow, does John Dykstra deliver!
I have heard other “rotten fruit” people weren’t impressed with this film, and I can’t imagine what else they want in a Summer blockbuster. This had earth shattering effects, powers on display in a grandiose fashion, as monuments crumble like metallic dust. People are decapitated in the blink of an eye, and governments sit idly by as they watch, neutered and helpless to the destruction. Only one group can resist this god-like cataclysm. And seriously, if you aren’t impressed with this film, you probably wouldn’t be impressed if a real god walked into your house and miracled a medallion out of your puckered-up ass! Get the fuck over yourself!!
Maybe this film isn’t for everyone, few films are for everyone anyway. But it sure as hell was for this aged X-Men fan. It made me feel like I was watching the X-Men of my time finally alive on the big screen. And I have been waiting a long time for that. My biggest gripe was the under use of my favorite punk rocker, Jubilee (Lana Condor) who had more screen time in the trailer than the whole film. That aside, I loved just about every second of this one, from the story to execution and the conclusion.
