When your film is the third in a trilogy, and you have one of your main characters speak a line about how the third film in a trilogy is always the worst, especially when you happen to be part of a film series of which the previous trilogy ended with a clunker for a third instalment, you had better be sure that you are not about to fall headlong into the same bin marked up as third part of a trilogy failures. With X Men: Apocalypse it’s a fate that is avoided, but not by as great a margin as viewers and fans might have hoped for.
After bringing past and future casts together in the decades spanning Days Of Future Past, the third instalment of the second trilogy returns it’s focus to the younger cast of the First Class era, with the past 10 years proving to have been better than the previous ten for Charles Xavier, who with the help of Nicholas Hoult’s Hank McCoy, has got re-opened his school for the gifted, and harbours plans for further expansion with his outlook much more positive with relations between humans and mutants on a steady, friendly level in his eyes. A look into that world and mindset is provided, in a manner similar to that provided by Wolverine in the original X Men, by Tye Sheridan’s younger version of James Marsden’s Scott Summers/Cyclops from the original series, who after his optical blast power manifests during school is brought to the mansion by his brother, the returning Lucas Till’s Havoc, to help the future leader of the X Men team come to terms with and manage his potentially devastating mutant ability.
In the meantime Michael Fassbender’s Magneto has adopted a quieter life in Poland, eschewing the use of his powers and living out a quieter everyday married life, preferring working in an honest job in a steel mill than plotting a follow up to previous plots such as dropping stadiums on the White House lawn in front of a worldwide TV audience. Against this more serene state of affairs however there is a much darker edge to the lives of some mutants, as demonstrated by the underground Berlin club that sees the introduction of Ben Hardy’s Angel, plunged into a fight to the end series of brutal fights against other mutants inside an electrified cage. This scenario is used as an opportunity to re-introduce Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler, as well as Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique, now hiding her natural blue form after the worldwide publicity that followed her actions to save the president a decade previously. After helping to free Nightcrawler during a fierce match up with Angel, Mystique arrives to present Xavier with an entirely different perspective of the world outside of Xavier’s mansion idyll.
Any tensions and issues that exist between humans and mutants are soon exacerbated further by the re-emergence of En Sabah Nur – one of the more popular X Men villains from their comic book history, and also known by the name Apocalypse (though never referred to directly by that title in the film interestingly), the opening sequence of the film goes back to ancient Egypt to depict En Sabah Nur transferring his consciousness and powers from a withering ageing body into a (presumably willing) volunteer mutant host, in this instance Oscar Issac’s unnamed Egyptian mutant who possesses an unlimited healing power. A rebel group attempts to disrupt the ceremony and despite the attempts of En Sabur Nur’s four horseman guardians, who possess their own mutant powers, the world’s first mutant is left buried underground in the collapsed rubble of his pyramid, until a group of latter day devotees uncover the buried remains of the pyramid and cause the completion of the transference. Encountering newcomer Alexandra Shipp’s younger version of Storm, the newly risen would-be ruler is less than impressed with the world of the 1980’s and decides that the best way to improve things is to wipeout those he sees as corrupt and weak leaving a new world built for the strongest survivors.
It shouldn’t come as much surprise by now, either in terms of the second X Men trilogy or in general, that Michael Fassbender once again manages to give a committed performance, dragging every fully committed emotional moment out of each scene that he’s given. The part of Xavier is one that James McAvoy now also seems very comfortable with, although he isn’t given as much to do as in Days of Future Past, and it’s in the scenes with Isaac’s En Sabah Nur that probably stand out as his best in this film, also helping to elevate the titular villain’s presence on screen. There are some nicely worked scenes with Sophie Turner that call back to the relationship between Jean Grey and Xavier in the original trilogy and how Xavier’s glimpse of the future in Days of Future Past has changed how he advises and helps Jean to nurture and control her powers and abilities, with a hint or two into the troubled aspects of the Jean Grey character and her fear of using her powers to their full potential. Tye Sheridan fairs best out of all of the new cast, given at least part of a progressive arc that will see him eventually lead the X Men, Kodi Smit-McPhee shows promise and brings lighter comedic moments as the younger version of Nightcrawler, whilst the returning Quicksilver brings some much needed brevity as well as another stand out action sequence in a similar vein from the kitchen scene in Days Of Future Past, although parts of his character’s arc in this instalment frustrate more than deliver or develop.
Though, despite fan misgivings, the decision for Jennifer Lawrence to appear as her normal self rather than Mystique’s natural blue makes sense both dramatically and story wise this version of the character will frustrate a bit in Apocalypse. To an extent it’s almost as if the team behind the film had seen her performances in the Hunger Games series and struggled to separate her from that, that said Lawrence carries a heavy determination and grit in scenes dealing with the world’s treatment of mutants and her ongoing mission to level the playing field, and one particular scene with a mix of old and new faces plays out with a nice sense of history and emotion. Others fair less well, with Storm, Angel and Pyslocke barely getting much chance to make any kind of impression, with their reasons for joining up with En Sabah Nur as his horsemen aren’t explained or the real reach of his persuasive powers on them made proper use of and as such their reasons or impetus for joining his purge on civilisation seem stretched or tenuous at best. Whilst fans of the comic books may complain at times over the attention given to Magneto especially in this new trilogy, his character does highlight the problem that En Sabah Nur poses as a villain, in that his reasons for wanting to purge the earth are never made clear, save for a disliking of the way things are after having a brief glimpse around Cairo. Though the early jibes about his look are proven to be thankfully completely off the mark, with the decision to go practical with make up and costume are more than justified though the modulation of his voice does seem a bit off-putting at times, it’s the lack of a real sense of drive that impacts on what Oscar Isaac can do and what kind of performance he can bring to the film, and as a result it’s a character who comes over as a bit of a one-note villain rather than one that has enough longevity to be an interesting enough reoccurring antagonist in any future films.
Much has been made recently over the repeated use of a world devastating threat or a power that threatens mass extinction in comic book films over the last two years especially, so it is with somewhat unfortunate timing that X Men: Apocalypse has come along when it has, and that the scenes of some of that devastation are revealed too much in the promotional trailers for the film. The sense of drama for the last half hour or so aren’t helped by the lack of a sense of danger or threat or human consequence to the destruction that is going on, given what isn’t shown as opposed to say the end of Age of Ultron which didn’t shy from the effect of the major battle on the inhabitants of Sokovia and the human cost that it involved and caused. There’s also a sense that the film as a result feels too last third heavy, with not much real story going on once En Sabah Nur’s scheme gets properly underway, and although there are some action scenes earlier in the film it does feel like the majority of action was saved for the last half hour or so and unfortunately shown too much in the trailers and pre-release publicity.
In amongst those action scenes are a crowd pleasing cameo and one of the better sequences of the film, especially when compared to some of the other action sequences in the film which can be slightly hard to keep up with the editing, or feature some decidedly rushed or not quite finished effects or compositing which suffers from being aimed at the 3D presentation. Several moments stick out and go beyond the point of being merely distracting at how much they have been geared to show off some deep perspective effect, taking you out of the moment in big scenes and there are a couple of moments of outrageous cheating and one particular story cheat more suited to the likes of the later series of Heroes that enables En Sabah Nur to learn about the state of the world in 1983 and command of the Englsih language in a matter of moments. Questions should be asked too of whether the series needs Simon Kinberg’s involvement on every film from now on – at the moment only those involved will know how heavily he re-wrote or tweaked the story conceived by X2 writing team and old Singer collaborators Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris, but with his duties as joint script writer on The Last Stand and last year’s failed Fantastic Four reboot on his CV along with this decidedly middling instalment of the X Men series there may be a case to answer for in terms of whether Kinberg needs to be involved in the writing or reworking of every Marvel script and whether it would be more beneficial going forward if the writers that are hired to craft the story are left to get on with developing the finished script with the incumbent director without Kinberg’s involvement.
All that said, X Men: Apocalypse is far from being a disaster or from feeling a let down on the level that Wolverine: Origins or The Last Stand were, but given his previous work and reputation for creating films that handle character aspects better than most it is a pity that that aspect seems missing from many of the characters in X Men: Apocalypse that really need it, which almost seems remarkable given the two and a half hour running time of the film. Whilst the action and effects are certainly laid on big enough for a typical summer blockbuster, X Men: Apocalypse does serve as a reminder that a bigger budget and more big CGI sequences doesn’t mean you get a better or more focussed film as a result, as Singer has previously achieved with the first X Men and one time genre best X2, something that might be best remembered for whatever next steps the series will inevitably take.
The occasional design blog 