I have to admit, when we went to see X-M:A yesterday, I was bracing myself for something really lousy. Like Batman vs. Superman lousy. Like Elektra or the Ang Lee Hulk movie or X-Men III lousy.
What I saw instead was a perfectly entertaining X-Men film that once again helped revitalize the series by bringing in new actors to play established characters, bring back some introduced in the previous film, and raise the stakes by introducing a villain who not only wanted to destroy every human being on the face of the Earth, but seemed eminently capable of doing it.
James McAvoy once again leads the cast as a Xavier who seems determined to simply run a school, not train warriors, while Michael Fassbender’s Magneto has a wife and child and is living anonymously in Poland. Naturally it all falls apart when Apocalypse (Oscar Isaacs, unrecognizable beneath several pounds of make-up) returns from thousands of years of imprisonment to wreak havoc upon a world that now knows that mutants exist, but basically seem kind of okay with it. This despite the fact that in at least one case, mutants are forced to battle each other in an electrified steel cage match, which is where we first encounter Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and Angel (Ben Hardy), the latter being pretty much the only mutant we encounter who is never addressed by his real name. Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), who obviously hates the full body make-up because she only appears in it for about thirty seconds of screen time, shows up to rescue them. She’s become something of a heroic legend at this point, particularly to young Storm (Alexandra Shipp) whose Ororo is better than Halle Berry if for no other reason than that she actually has an accent. Throw in a newly empowered Cyclops (Tye Sheridan) and a pre-Phoenix Jean Grey (Sansa Stark…sorry, Sophie Turner) and the triumphant return of Quicksilver (Evan Peters) and you have a well-cast, entertaining film with lots of great moments and an overall full blown villain-wants-to-end-the world comic book story.
So why are people complaining? Mostly I see reviews complaining about “repetition.” That they are evoking mutant concerns that have already been thoroughly explored in previous films. Except that worries about mutants were pervasive in the first movie, and that was set decades after this one, so it would make no sense if mutant kind were universally beloved at this point in the continuity. Besides which, mutant phobia is actually a very minor part of the film. Yes, people are terrified of Magneto, but he destroyed the freaking White House on global television, so that makes sense.
Personally, I thought it was thoroughly engaging and not remotely deserving of the negative reviews I’ve seen. Yes, it wasn’t Days of Future Past, but if nothing else, that had Wolverine throughout and also wiped out X-Men 3, so that would be hard to top. And they even make a wonderful inside reference to how third films in trilogies always are the worst. Apparently the movie makers knew what they were up against in terms of public expectations, but they certainly did their best and I thought they did wonderfully.
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I liked it, too. My only “complaint” is that none of the actors looked a decade older, despite the movie being set 10 years after Days of Future Past, which itself was set about a decade after X-Men First Class. I probably wouldn’t have given that any particular thought if Charles himself hadn’t expressed his amazement at how Moira hadn’t seemed to have aged.
I also noticed that they’re still mispronouncing “Xavier.” It’s properly pronounced “Zavier” not “Xzavier.”
Did you see the 3D version? If so, is it worth seeing in that format? Although I’d seen Captain America: Civil War in 3D, this time I decided to see the regular version.
The Quicksilver rescues the students scene was one of the movie’s highlights.
Again, I found the movie very entertaining. I’ll very likely buy the DVD when it comes out. On the other hand, if I watch Batman V. Superman on DVD, it’ll be borrowed from the library and only so I can listen to the commentary track (if there is one) to see if they explain what the hëll they were thinking.
Rick.
That bugged me about the ages, too.
As for 3D, if I were you, I would have reversed it, since X-Men was actually shot in 3D but Cap was not. That said, I think I would have preferred X-Men in 2D. The 3D added nothing and actually made everything look cheesier.
“The 3D added nothing and actually made everything look cheesier.”
As is pretty much always the case. I’ve seen a could movies in both 2D and 3D, and never felt anything was lacking in 2D or added in 3D.
If a movie is shot in 3D, then it may be worthwhile to see it that way. But if not, then don’t. Not only won’t it add anything, but because by design each eye is only seeing half of the light being thrown onto the screen, it darkens the image. A made-for-3D movie takes this into account. Smarter 3D-in-post ones also brighten up the image to compensate, but it wasn’t initially filmed to be that way.
For superhero movies in particular, this can hurt the impression of energy beams, fire, and other light-type effects that should be quite bright.
For me 3D only fully works when it’s HFR (High Frame Rate). So far the only movies I’ve seen done this way are the three parts of The Hobbit. Doubling the frame rate eliminates the flickering caused by 3D’s inherent halving of the frame rate, and also practically eliminates the inter-frame motion blur on moving objects. Frankly, HFR 3D becomes so realistic that it no longer “looks” like a movie. It looks real. It looks like you’re watching a stage play behind glass with giant actors.
Loved the school rescue sequence as well. Made me wonder why Quicksilver would refer to himself as a ‘loser’ when, earlier in the film, he’d saved all those lives. Losers don’t normally do that.
Thank-you. I just finished reading a full on rant about this movie (from an Editor-in-Chief of the website) with misleading and just plain juvenile attempts at humour at the filmmakers expense. Embarrassing. I think I’m just going to stop reading movie reviews online. Way too many unqualified opinion writers claiming to be professional film critics.
Not saying you are claiming that but blogs I expect personal opinions and not a critical analysis.
Haven’t seen it yet (finally watched DOFP on cable), but there since he was introduced in the comics, there was always something about Apocalypse that annoyed me, that he was a third-rate Dr. Doom/Darkseid/Thanos mashup. But that could just be me.
Because it’s terrible. The script is a mess (including a completely unnecessary second villain in William Stryker, who’s there seemingly just to give Wolverine a cameo, which actually contradicts the ending of the last movie, anyway), the acting is mostly mediocre, and the whole movie looks more like an X-Men video game than an X-Men movie. And Magneto yells at God, so there’s that.
Quicksilver’s big scene is amazing, though. He continues to be the only reason to keep watching this series.
Magneto was well handled, except for the bit where he helps trash Cairo. Uh, I seem to recall he was upset because the Nazis killed his family and all those other Jews. Er, did it not occur to him there might be Jews in Cairo? Naw, let’s had-wave that away.
I also hated that line about third movies being the worst, because X-Men 3 was way better than this movie. To me, it just came off as Bryan Singer being his usual dickish, arrogant self.
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And yes, I hate that the last two movies have mostly been an exercise in wiping The Last Stand out of continuity.
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Speaking of continuity, why is Senator Kelly so concerned about Kitty Pryde in the first movie, when the world has already encountered Apocalypse? This series makes no sense (I also laughed at Apocalypse being responsible for both Xavier’s baldness and Storm’s white hair).
The last two movies wiped out all the other X-Men movies. The only ones in continuity now are First Class, Days of Future Past and Apocalypse. Everything else is gone now.
I’ve somehow been able to avoid reviews for this movie, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. In fact, I found it much less frustrating than Batman v Superman and Civil War. BvS was weighed down by its own ambition and strange ideas, and Civil War was afraid to tell a story with any real stakes. And both of those movies insisted on showing absolutely everything in the trailers.
So Apocalypse was quite refreshing in that regard. I didn’t know Angel was going to be in it or Wolverine, for that matter. And I don’t think Wolverine’s cameo contradicted anything. In this movie, Striker had a line about knowing what Mystique was. Perhaps he was referring to how he knew she impersonated him to get Wolverine. And ten years is a long time to Striker to eventually get his hands on Wolverine.
I was also happy to finally have a superhero movie that didn’t go out of its way to explain that all the civilians were safe. BvS: Luckily nobody’s on the streets since it’s night, and we can lead Doomsday to an evacuated area. Civil War: Sure, we destroyed an entire airport, but that’s OK because we apparently evacuated it a minute ago. In Apocalypse, they destroyed the entire city of Cairo, and they weren’t compelled to excuse it. They just told their story, and it was awesome.
“Contradicts” in the sense that it renders it pointless, not in the sense that it creates a continuity error.
I’m not so sure about that. At the end of the last movie, it showed Mystique going around and trying to help other mutants, which was exactly what she was doing at the start of this movie.
My review – I enjoyed it.
My reason for commenting – I know Superman v Batman wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but you CAN’T (sanely) put it in the same degree of lousiness as Elektra!
I was neither impressed or depressed by it. I thought it could have been much better. Apocalypse is just thrown at you with him only repeating the strong should survive.
then Raven just shows up in germany and sees mutants fighting and takes on kurt.
The age thing did bother me also and i was angry that they killed havok. once again Wolverine stole the show along with Pietro.
But i didnt really feel like the characters progressed, other than scott going from a jerk to a nice guy in 2.3 secons, jean going from timid to bad ášš at the flip of the switch.
while erics family being killed to drive him mad was a nice touch (i feel horrible saying thats a nice touch when he watches his family get killed) but to make her a mutant that can talk to animals?
apocalypse being able to teleport everyone? i know they say he absorbed other mutants abilities to get around the whole shape changing celestial armor ship stealing ways.
and where was jubilee? 4 seconds of screen time?
“So why are people complaining?”
That’s gotta be a rhetorical question. You know this Peter: It’s because that’s what comic book fans do.
“Beetlejuice will suck as Batman.” “Wolverine’s supposed to be short Canadian, this Jackson guy’s gonna suck!” “Another Hulk movie? Gonna suck.” “Guardians of the Galaxy? Seriously? Marvel’s streak of good movies is ending.” “Ant-Man?! Seriously? Marvel’s streak of good movies is ending.” “Affleck will suck as Batman.”
Or, in this case, because they saw the movie and didn’t like it.
For those who keep complaining about contradictions, remember that the last movie changed the time line. What we’re seeing now is the effects of the changes, so things aren’t going to be in step with the first three movies or any of the Wolverine movies which were set before the change (remember that the post-credits scene in the last one set up Days of Future Past). Side note..I wonder if this also gave us the good version of Deadpool in his movie vs. the crappy version in Wolverine: Origins.
I liked it, but didn’t love it. I think the main thing was that there were too many characters so several got shorted. For example, Psylocke got action sequences but no real development…such as a reason why she joined Apocalypse. Or Angel which was basically given a very Cliff’s Note storyline. The ones that were allowed to breathe generally were good like Jean Stark, Nightcrawler, Quicksilver, etc. It just fell into the trap of trying to do a bit too much at times. For example, aside from Magneto, none of the horsemen added that much to the movie really and could’ve been removed just to have Apocalypse as the solo villain. Then, spend more time developing other characters.
Except nothing that was changed in the timeline would affect Apocalypse’s reemergence (or lack thereof). And it obviously did happen in the original timeline, unless Xavier somehow got bald some other way, and Storm’s hair somehow turned white some other way. This movie is dumb.
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And why would Wolverine’s time jump make Angel be born a few decades earlier? Or Jubilee? Or are there two Angels and two Jubilees, just like there are apparently two Emma Frosts and, if we include Deadpool, two Colossuses (Collosi?). Unless Wolverine somehow altered the timeline to make Colossus Russian and lame.
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Fox has mangled this franchise beyond all repair. Marvel is the only company making superhero movies who have their šhìŧ together.
Got it, you don’t like it because it isn’t fanboy pure. Here is a clue, you aren’t the target audience, there aren’t enough comics fans to support a 200,000,000 film. Studios don’t care about long term continuity, who was born when, did the time leap make perfect sense within continuity…heck neither do the publishers who are rebooting their continuities every 2 to 5 years. And neither does the average viewer. Most can barely remember DOFP. The studio wants to sell tickets and the viewer wants to be entertained for their ten bucks. Nitpicking when angel should have been born or if apocolyps was part of the first three movies unspoken history… Moviegoers by the majority could care less, on the level they are looking this is an enjoyable summer popcorn movie.
I just like my movies to be well written and make sense. Silly me. I don’t consider blatant continuity gaffs to be nitpicking. I’m not really concerned about what other people care about, but thanks (although, considering all the nitpicking over the Star Wars prequels that went on, people obviously do care about this stuff).
Ok, Mr. Fuller, let’s take a moment and look at your comment up above: “Or, in this case, because they saw the movie and didn’t like it.”
You are correct. People are allowed to voice their distaste and disapproval if they did not enjoy a movie.
On the opposite side, and bear with me because I know this is going to be hard to accept . . . people are ALSO allowed to voice their APPRECIATION and HAPPINESS with the film. See, some people saw the movie and DID like it. And now, like you, they wish to share their views.
The difference being . . . YOU’RE the only one who has commented SEVEN TIMES out of 20 comments – many of them directly criticizing other people’s positive comments – to get your perspective across. That’s over a third of the discussion, which is apparently not X-Men-film-hating and you-centric enough for your taste.
Moreover, the one time when someone has pointedly told YOU that YOU are incorrect, you’ve decided to be snippy in response, because how dare someone correct YOUR opinion like you’ve been correcting others’.
Now, obviously, I’m not the authority around here, and don’t expect any kind of reprisal. You are free to continue to comment as you wish (and since you’re “not really concerned about what other people care about,” I imagine you will do so) with whatever negative reaction you deem appropriate.
I just thought someone should point out the cognitive dissonance and contradiction inherent in your little Anti-X campaign.
“The difference being . . . YOU’RE the only one who has commented SEVEN TIMES out of 20 comments – many of them directly criticizing other people’s positive comments – to get your perspective across. That’s over a third of the discussion, which is apparently not X-Men-film-hating and you-centric enough for your taste.”
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Sorry, I didn’t realize there was a cap on the number of times you can comment on here. For what it’s worth, two of my comments were basically one comment in two parts, directly responding to Peter’s review (I hit submit and then realized I had more to say). One was to Rick Keating, in which I was agreeing with him on one point and answering a question he asked (not to me, true, but I feel like it’s okay to jump in on a public message board/blog). The rest, aside from the comment to Sean Martin, were in response to comments they made which were responses to my original posts. And I didn’t criticize a single person’s positive comment, so I don’t know where you’re getting that from.
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“Moreover, the one time when someone has pointedly told YOU that YOU are incorrect, you’ve decided to be snippy in response, because how dare someone correct YOUR opinion like you’ve been correcting others’.”
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I wasn’t snippy to anyone (except maybe to Brian, but he was snippy first). For that matter, I wasn’t incorrect about anything, so, again, I don’t know what you’re talking about.
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“I just thought someone should point out the cognitive dissonance and contradiction inherent in your little Anti-X campaign.”
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It’s not a campaign. I just wanted to discuss this superhero movie with superhero fans. Forgive me.
Jay laid it out more thoroughly than I did.
Robert, we know you didn’t like the movie, you are obviously not the intended audience for this movie. However it was irritating that anyone who had anything good to say about the movie you jumped in and had to prove why it wasn’t.
Frankly you are demanding a level of continuity that doesn’t even exist in the comics themselves. I think it was in PAD’s second Hulk run where in the last issue he wrote he used Rick to say something to the effect of: Others may come along and contradict what I have told you, but this is the story I had to tell. (Dim memory but I remember picking up the following issue and going WTF, he wasn’t kidding. And that was my last issue) So even the writers knowingly ignore continuity.
Continuity for writers can be a straight jacket preventing them from telling a good story. So they have the choice, throw away a good story, fudge the continuity to make the story work or just completely ignore everything. Where does the Killing Joke really fit in the Batman/Joker mythos? It doesn’t. Or how about the original Dark Knight series? It doesn’t.
And that is why you are wrong about this movie. It is well written, true the more established actors and their characters get serviced the best: Magneto, professor, Logan, Mystique, Beast, Jean and Moria. But the studio wants what they know sells. The acting is good and the plot is enjoyable.
No movie franchise reaches the level of fanboy continuity that you are demanding, from Star Wars to Star Trek, to Harry Potter and even the Marvel Cinematic Universe, they all have their issues if you are willing to look. Sometimes even the creator decides to change course. Lucas did that with the prequels, heck the original 3 when Guido shot first. You read a Rodenberry interview from when the original Start Trek was on tv and then one from the 80’s when he was working on Next Gen and it can be argued he’s not even talking about the same basic show or ideas.
Based on it’s own merits as a self contained story, which it is, this is a good movie and that is how most people look at movies.
“Robert, we know you didn’t like the movie, you are obviously not the intended audience for this movie.”
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Why do people keep saying that? Of course I am. I’m a superhero fan who liked the first three movies (at the time, anyway … the first one hasn’t aged well) and DOFP.
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“However it was irritating that anyone who had anything good to say about the movie you jumped in and had to prove why it wasn’t.”
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Again, I never did that. Every time I “jumped in” (AKA replied), it was in response to someone directly addressing something I wrote in my original comment. Dallin said he didn’t think Wolverine’s cameo contradicted anything IN RESPONSE TO MY POST, and I explained what I meant when I said that. Greg addressed his first paragraph to those who are complaining about contradictions, which is me, so I responded with my views on the subject. What is the problem? I never tried to prove why it wasn’t good. I was merely bringing up aspects of the film that bugged me. You know, like people do when having a conversation about movies. But when all is said and done, my dislike for the movie has little to do with its lack of fealty to its predecessors. It’s bad just as a stand-alone movie. And the majority of fans and critics agree with me, so I don’t think I’m off-base by saying that. It’s not like I’m coming down on Citizen Kane for being badly written. Gimme a break.
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“Frankly you are demanding a level of continuity that doesn’t even exist in the comics themselves.”
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That’s one reason why I don’t read comics anymore. I consider continuity to be part of good writing. If I’m bugged by disregard for continuity, let me be bugged. Why does it even concern you?
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“And that is why you are wrong about this movie. It is well written, true the more established actors and their characters get serviced the best: Magneto, professor, Logan, Mystique, Beast, Jean and Moria. But the studio wants what they know sells. The acting is good and the plot is enjoyable.”
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“Based on it’s own merits as a self contained story, which it is, this is a good movie and that is how most people look at movies.”
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That’s all your opinion. I disagree. You’re the only one here who seems to be trying to “prove” their own opinion. How ironic.
“No movie franchise reaches the level of fanboy continuity that you are demanding, from Star Wars to Star Trek, to Harry Potter and even the Marvel Cinematic Universe, they all have their issues if you are willing to look.”
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I’m fine with those franchises (well, not Star Trek, thanks to J.J. Abrams and his awfulness). They actually do reach the level I’m demanding (which I don’t think is at all unreasonable). They don’t ignore or contradict entire movies in their series, like X-M: A does.
I thought it was okay. Angel and Psylocke are pretty much nonentities. Quicksilver’s characterization (as an Impulse clone and like no Pietro Maximoff ever seen before) continues to grate. The new kids are mostly ‘eh’.
Still, McAvoy and Fassbender are terrific. And it sure beats Days of Future Past which totally falls apart at the end.
I expect Xavier and Magneto’s competing visions to be a focus, so I don’t get the repetition criticism.
Saw it yesterday in 2D at a Regal Cinemas matinee, 13 other people in the theater, had the whole back row to myself, but had to sit through about 45 minutes of pre-show promos, which was draining.
I liked it. I don’t think they did a good job explaining why the mansion blew up though. I’m assuming that Hank was warning about some kind of power source behind the wall that Havoc aimed at. I noticed that some things were different from the ComicCon first trailer, like where Xavier finishes Moira’s line “the first…” “mutant.” In the released film she says it all. I thought it was cool how Wolverine ran off into the snow, since in the 1st X-Men movie, that’s the environment we first encounter him, after he leaves the bar that Rogue found him in.
In the end, the reasons people give for disliking a film are irrelevant. What matters is, they didn’t like the film; people watched it, had a reaction, and then tried to articulate why they had that reaction.
I liked the bits with Scott, Jean, and Kurt (it felt like there was supposed to be at least one more scene with them all getting to know each other before everything hit the fan). Quicksilver was fun as always (has he ever actually been called “Quicksilver” on screen? I know I heard his mom call him “Peter”).
My big complaints are: way too many characters (and we’ve seen with Civil War now how lots of characters can be done well) and the film felt long. It’s not that I disliked the film, because I didn’t. I’d say it was okay.
Oh, and the arrow that killed..um..who it killed (trying not to give too much away) likely wouldn’t have done much more than break the skin, given that the fellow holding the bow was just holding the arrow to the bowstring and barely had it drawn.
People are bìŧçhìņg about it because the movie is terribly written by normal standards, let alone compared to the two previous X-flicks.
Just think about this. How many people did Magneto kill in the movie? Forget about the early scene that supposedly explains his return to villainy. How many people did Magneto kill at the end when he’s doing whatever he was doing to the planet? In just one bit, we see a bridge being torn apart with dozens of vehicles on it. Even in the most conservative estimate, Magneto had to kill THOUSANDS of people doing that.
Yet at the end, is anyone concerned? Bothered? Distressed? No. Magneto, a guy with a long established history of bad acts who just murdered people on a global scale, is allowed to walk away with nothing more than a smile and a goodbye.
WTF?!?!
Well, to be fair, that happened a lot in the comics too. Magneto was even brought to trial for his crimes once, and was, IIRC, exonerated. And even got to lead the school for a while. Of course, status quo being king, he went back to his “evil” ways, but still….
I thought it was a blast. I didn’t go in with high expectations (can barely remember DOFP) but I exited wanting to see it again. Great pace, great acting, all-around fun; exactly what I want when I go to a movie.
It just needed more Jubilee. And honestly, doesn’t everything?
Nawww … but I’ve never been a fan of the character. Colossus, on the other paw, I’m sorry he didn’t get to put in an appearance.
My favourite X-MEN film since the original first two. Third favourite, could easily have been second, except how fast and loose they played with some characters. The new actress playing Storm is heads and shoulders above Halle Berry’s version, yes. Unfortunately, she and Psylocke ring utterly false in the scene with Apocalypse and Angel. Their reaction, or lack thereof, to that and similar scenes made zero sense. They did a terrific job of Kurt, though. Not as angst-ridden as in previous appearances. There’s hope for a potential next film. Especially if they keep up the balance between light and dark – and I don’t mean the lighting.
Me, I’m glad that the film got all the negative buzz, because I went in a bit worried that it would be bad, and because the bar was prejudicialy set low for me, it turned out to be okay. Aside from the somewhat generic villain motives, and the problem of escalation (once again, a mutant is shown to blow apart major landmarks with innocent humans in them/on them, without any indication of worsening public attitudes towards mutants as a result), and the fact that Wolverine’s story seemed to flatly contradict where the ending of the previous film indicated he’d be after Mystique rescued him from the Potomac, it was pretty good. Not as good as previous films, but okay.
I liked it. Didn’t love it, but liked it.
Continuity in X-Men films doesn’t bother me as I think there’s something in X2 that contradicts something in X1 and then X3 contradicts more. And so on. I don’t think there are any two of them that work perfectly from a continuity stand point. It’s never been a priority for the studio or filmmakers, so I let that go a while back. Not saying I wouldn’t prefer the films that way, but I know what I’m going to get and manage my expectations accordingly.
I noticed someone commented earlier how Fox had futzed these movies all up. If you value a very tight continuity, I can see why someone would feel that way, but when I look at these films, Apocalypse is pretty far down on the overall list of how good they are, but it’s still good. I’d say there are only two of nine films that are truly awful. X-Men 1, X-Men 2, First Class, and DOFP are all really well made super hero films. Like, REALLY good. And I’d throw Deadpool up there, too. Including DP, that’s five really great super hero films out of 9. Apocalypse and The Wolverine are both good if not great, but still solid. So, I don’t know, I don’t think Fox has done as bad a job as a lot of people seem to think they did. Although the 1-2 punch of X3 and Origins was hard to get back up from…
Just my two cents…
A big part of it is that Marvel keeps raising the bar for superhero movies. I mean, after ‘Civil War’, you can’t turn out something that’s “about as good as the previous five X-Men movies”, you gotta raise your game. I’m not sure Singer has it in him.
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But mostly, it’s kind of a flabby movie script-wise. Angel, Psylocke and Storm all get arcs so perfunctory that they may as well have been “Generic Character #1, #2 and #3” (and if you’re going that route, why not use War, Famine and Pestilence from the original X-Factor arc? At least they make thematic sense). The movie also seems to be faintly embarrassed by Apocalypse; he never gets called by his name, his Horsemen are just “the Four Guys Who Hang Out with that Other Guy”, and in general the movie doesn’t seem to want to embrace its own concept.
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They took all and only the worst elements of Apocalypse as a character. Things he doesn’t do? Shapeshift and smack people around with his physical strength, which is thematically important. Things he does do? Body hop and have vague, handwavium powers, which is always the frustrating thing about him as a character. He doesn’t even get good speeches. Poccy is a great speechifying villain, but we get none of that.
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There’s a long, saggy stretch in the middle that primarily acts to show us Stryker, Wolverine, and to stall the plot until the two hour mark. Literally, the only thing that changes if that entire sequence gets removed is you have to find a different way for the X-Men to steal a jet.
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There’s actually a lot of sag to the movie. Cyclops gets four unnecessary introductory sequences so that we can all learn again for the sixth time that he’s got uncontrollable optic blasts. Magneto gets several scenes of domestic bliss that are at least somewhat forgivable in that they make the fridging of his wife and kid only mostly an arbitrary exercise in plot-kludging him back to “EVIL!”, rather than an entirely arbitrary exercise in plot-kludging him back to “EVIL!” The gathering of the Horsemen takes forever, especially given that as noted, the scenes are really just an exercise in En Sabah Nur walking up and saying, “Hi, you look like a character the fans will recognize! Want to be an Easter Egg?”
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And the final battle is basically just a case of “Nothing works against Apocalypse! He’s too powerful! But what if we….get to the end of the movie and have to wrap this up so people can hit the bathroom after downing their Big Gulp? That’s IT! We’ll defeat him because it’s the end of the movie!” I would have been okay if they’d just stuck with Phoenix whomping him, because at least that’s thematically appropriate and sets up later stuff, but even when she slaps him down, there’s five more minutes of “Oh, still a little bit longer to run out the clock. Okay then. Keep hitting him!”
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It wasn’t bad, but at the same time it felt like it could have been so much better that I can understand people getting extremely frustrating. It feels like we were expected to settle for it because it didn’t suck. And while that worked really well with the first couple X-movies, back when our general experience of superhero movies was that they did suck and suck badly, this isn’t 2000 anymore.