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‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ Review: A Combination Of Cheesy And Brilliant Moments That Work Well Overall

By Colin Fredericson
Published on: 15:54 PST, May 29, 2016

X-Men: Apocalypse firmly implants the X-Men into the 80s for a battle against their most terrible adversary. If you have yet to watch the movie, please don’t let this review spoil the experience. Keep the web browser open to this page and come back later.

Apocalypse is ancient, powerful, and far-reaching. In the comics, he is ominous, mysterious, and omnipresent. He is definitely a challenge for any average superhero team. But with the combined powers of the X-Men, even the greatest opponents eventually must fall. To bring forth the full feel for the Apocalypse character that readers of comics have come to know is not easy.

At the times when Oscar Isaac’s performance doesn’t quite give the strongest impression, he is saved by an awesome musical selection as backing, along with sound manipulation to bring through the calm ferocity of his voice. The one scene where he does become giant size also reinforces the impact and gives comics fans more to recognize.

The strange part is the selection of the Four Horsemen. The only one convincingly evil enough to join such an effort would be Magneto. Bringing in Storm, Angel, and Psylocke only to have them join Apocalypse is awkward for comics fans. It’s just that there is no precedent for it in comics. Producers may have chosen such X-Men due to them being easily recognizable. If the Four Horsemen were taken directly from one of their comic book depictions, they’d likely leave more casual X-Men fans clueless.

Magneto is the only one of the horsemen given time enough to develop his character and flesh out his inner conflict. He plays the leading role in this movie, and that’s because of how powerful he is. Nightcrawler also makes major impact. Scenes featuring Quicksilver are once again genius if a little bit rough in the computer graphics department at times.

Some characters with smaller roles and less lines leave audiences curious. Caliban is great. Psylocke needs a backstory. Jubilee is in there for a few minutes, if that much, and barely utters a peep. Of course, there are too many X-Men in existence to bring them all in and flesh out each one, so hopefully, there will be more chances.

X-Men: Apocalypse, despite putting forth questions that never get answered among its plot points, doesn’t feel incomplete by movie’s end. If anything, it feels too complete and brings closure like a door slamming shut to the trilogy. Fox could end its X-Men ventures here, but they might follow Sony and set a deal with Marvel Studios, finally. The Gambit movie is still up in the air, but as Collider reports, a final Wolverine movie is on its way, along with more future Fox superhero ventures like Deadpool 2 and New Mutants.

X-Men: Apocalypse is already on course to take the Memorial Day Weekend box office by a large margin. It will mark Fox’s second successful superhero release this year. Fox also hopes to release a third film based on Marvel Comics characters in October. This was supposed to be the spot Gambit should have taken. Gambit is currently undergoing script rewrites and will likely not be ready by then.

For fans wondering about the end credits scene which shows the clean up crew after Wolverine’s massacre, along with someone taking a vial of Wolverine’s blood, as Screen Rant theorizes, this is believed to be setting up future X-Men movies featuring Mr. Sinister, a nasty looking villain who works with Apocalypse in the comics. He likely takes the blood to engage in cloning experiments, something he is known for. X-Men: Apocalypse isn’t the most amazing superhero film effort ever, but it is a solid performer and achieves its mission.

[Photo by Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images]

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