The Gist:
It’s the 80s and our original rebooted team of mutants led by Charlie Xavier (McAvoy) have either moved on or still fighting the good fight. Meanwhile En Sabah Nur AKA Apocalypse is back and ready to wreak havoc on mankind and all to those that stand in his way.
The Review:
I have a love/hate thing for the X-Men franchise. The first movie, I was quite young when it came out and let’s be honest, it lacked any real form of mutant action. Then Bryan Singer made up for that in the opening sequence of X-Men 2 alone. Rather than go into detail, let’s just say I always felt something was missing, even in Days of Future Past.
So here we are, twenty years after the first movie and Singer is on all too common territory. With a brief opening monologue about mutants which we’ve heard how many times now? we’re thrown right into the belly of the beast. In ancient Egypt, En Sabah Nur (let’s just call him Apocalypse from here on out) was worshipped as a god who always had four warriors by his side. He’s imprisoned and his followers killed. Skip forward a few thousand years where ten years after Magneto tried to kill the President (and according to the news Mystique saved him) the rest of the world has moved on.
Speaking of which, Erik (Fassbender) is living the simple life in Poland with his wife and daughter just trying to get a break, guess the outcome. Xavier on the other hand has his school up and running with his latest batch of students, Jean Grey (Sophia Turner) and Scott Summers (Tye Sheridian). Half way across the world we witness what other mutants are up to, namely the winged Angel (Ben Hardy) and Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee) where they must fight each other in a electrified cage or get shot. Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique also pops up here and there as a saviour and icon for the younger mutants…hmmm.
If this is all a bit much well this is the first twenty minutes of the movie. Each individual character has their screen time but here’s the thing. Despite my positive review of Batman V Superman, I can’t deny the film itself felt rushed with segments of a longer scene cut in between each other.
Here though, Singer takes his time with each of these characters, introducing them and their powers before moving onto the next scene. Here though he must since there’s like what, ten main characters and Apocalypse who also needs time to get his merry four horsemen together: Magneto, Storm (Alexandra Ship) Angel and Psylocke (Olivia Munn)
Although I would have preferred Isaac’s Apocalypse to be a tad more physically imposing he does a good enough job. His powers range from manipulating matter (and people) as well as amplifying mutant powers and that is where Singer ups the ante and boy does he. So how does it fare up?
Pretty good, this is by far the biggest and most destructive X-Men movie yet. How this will affect the future of the series we will have to see. Either way it’s a damn fun ride, and yes the best for last. The producers listened, DOFP fan favourite Evan Peter’s Quicksilver is in this film for longer and has an extended scene all to himself to the tunes of Eurhythmics Sweet Dreams are Made of This.
The Verdict:
By making it bigger, some qualities have been lost. Singer though knows how to handle his mutant’s powers and does it gloriously. The action is tight, the story line although simple is enough to push its two hour run time.
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