The Apocalypse of the X-Men films

A sign of the end times

Please be aware, if anyone understands that the X-Men film franchise has a beloved, outrageously substantial following, that person is me. So regardless of the latest, ill-fated film, let me preface the word vomit that is about to proceed with the following disclosure:

This will be a completely SPOILER-FREE rant.
(So read all you want.)

I have the utmost respect for fans and as a HUGE, lifelong fan of this franchise, defending all of it no matter how hard we've limped to the apocalypse; the end of the world; the worst of the worst, I will in fact keep you in suspense no longer, with only one spoiler:

X-Men: Apocalypse is bar none the worst of all the X-Men films.

Let me preface that seemingly bold, BOLD statement with some credibility and brief history.

 There are SIX "team X-Men" films, two Wolverine spin offs and one Deadpool spinoff, all seemingly taking place in a co-existing continuity that makes the plot of NBC's Heroes seem tolerable (That includes four seasons worth of plot holes and mind numbing excuses for bizarre and unexplained events happening just for the sake of "earth shattering events bringing these characters together" [and for the record, I LOVED Heroes, even during its worst times]). 

  Let me take it one step further and declare that I not only own on DVD, but to this day defend both X-Men: The Last Stand AND X-Men Origins: Wolverine. They're both incredibly flawed films and loathed by even the most loyal fans; people absolutely HATE one or both of those films, but even I have a place in my heart to find a mentally satisfied place in the dark crevices of my brain to accept them into the convoluted and outright ridiculous continuity of poor CGI and straight up bizarre screenplay choices.

  Like when this stuff happened.

  Now, mind you, these are films that feature Jean Grey/"Phoenix" killing Cyclops in the first act because James Marsden was busy filming the beloved Superman Returns; the project veteran director Bryan Singer left the X-Men films for; the same films that shoehorn in all kinds of X-Men characters just for the sake of it, including Angel just to move the plot along, Colossus just because they needed more heroes, one-note villains including a Prince-looking hooker who claps seismic waves of energy, and "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!" which was a reference to a YouTube video; films that include Ryan Reynolds turning into a silent Deadpool who teleports, has swords for arms and shoots lasers from his eyes, on top of the endless Windows 98-looking CGI and obnoxious plot points for the sake of adding "big action sequences" and super imposed CGI Patrick Stewart in hopeless attempts at tying into the other films. And that's literally only just scratching the surface with these films.
But forgive me, at the end of the day, I dig Kelsey Grammer's Beast, Liev Schreiber's Sabertooth and even Taylor Kitsch's near-cameo take on Gambit to give my own personal credibility. Hell, at least those films are highly ENTERTAINING to watch if just for the wild action sequences and brief moments of any mutated form of development in the characters or the plot. But Apocalypse is a whole different beast entirely; It's the literal bottom of the barrel. It somehow makes not just The Last Stand look like X2, but it makes Wolverine tolerable enough to be put on loop. So again, let it be known, after 9 (loosely) connected films, this one takes the cake. It literally doesn't get worse than this.

Alright. On to the movie already (am I right?!)

Ivan Ooze is getting impatient.

  The new film is not just the worst X-Men film; it's the most offensive and the reason being that is because we've essentially come so far to receive only so little. Sure, one could argue "these films have been flogging a dead horse for years now," but for those of us who have invested in all the character development; all the heinous attempts at bridging together two timelines; essentially two vastly different franchises together in one unanimous family of glorious mutant brotherhood, this new film is a literal betrayal to everything we know and love about the X-Men films and strips away everything that's made following these characters for 16 years so special. And that's the biggest crime here. Apocalypse isn't just a snooze-fest (and it is); it's an unraveling of everything Days of Future Past weaved together so nicely, which is frankly quite nothing short of bizarre and asinine given that Apocalypse was created by Bryan Singer, author and orchestrator of not just 2014's DOFP, but the original X-Men which literally changed and molded the comic book movie genre forever, in the year 2000.

A film which has suddenly become very nostalgic.

  Watching Apocalypse is like watching characters and stories you've come to love and appreciate for a decade and a half and feel like they just don't belong. It's as if you're watching a crappy spin-off of a spin-off and nothing really ever feels quite balanced. Every character here stems from a beloved incarnation of personality from either their film or comic book format throughout years of super hero history, but watching these characters go through the motions for this round in this specific live action adaptation is straight up baffling. It's as if they had no material to work with and weren't piggy-backing off of at least four other major films connected to the narrative.

  We follow the older characters from the new generation of past X-Men, the big three currently being James McAvoy's Charles Xavier, Fassbender's Magneto and somehow, Jennifer Lawrence's Mystique. Sure Nicholas Hoult plays Beast again, this time just for the sake of the character showing up to bring everyone full circle but those big three have been the faces of this new trilogy featuring the more glorious gifted youngsters and SOMEHOW, some way, all three leads have completely phoned in their performances. I won't get on the bandwagon of bashing Jennifer Lawrence playing a very confusing Mystique, who really just does absolutely nothing for these films at this point; the character is oddly misplaced and just doesn't belong here. But more than Lawrence, it's more McAvoy and shockingly Fassbender who have left me in shambles.

And how they managed that is beyond me.

  Sure, you can only do so much with the character of Professor X who wants nothing more than to provide for the good of man and mutant-kind, alike, but McAvoy plays a one-note professor, even during some of the more "emotional" scenes, where Fassbender's role is nothing but head scratching; arguably the most baffling performance of the entire cast.
  Without spoiling, as promised, let's just say that we dive into Magneto's personal life over the 10-year gap in the events since DOFP. While following Magneto's new life, we're introduced to new, completely useless characters; We're reminded of Wolverine's baffling, random love interest and lumberjack double life in Origins, mostly in the sense that we're simply not invested in the new subplots or these new faces. Things happen that make Magneto sad; make Magneto angry; Make Magneto yada yada yada; we bring his story full circle and Erik Lensher inadvertently once again teeters between good and evil.

MAKE UP YOUR MIND ALREADY

  This is the part where I would normally break to talk about Fassbender and how every other actor in these films are completely out of his league and that the man should really just be sticking to Oscar-drama at this point, but tragically, I LOVE his take on Magneto and his performance here, as much as he tries, is more reminiscent of what happened to Sylar's character by the time we reached the fourth season of Heroes (again, one can only bring it back to Heroes but this version of Magneto is way too similar and by the time we reach this point in the story whether it be a fourth season or a third film, the comparison of said villain character arc is not to be taken as a compliment). To put it short, Fassbender, like Zachary Quinto, is simply better than this and with an actor this good we've reached a point where we really need to point fingers at Singer more than 'Bender.

  And the worst part about the characters isn't that they phoned in the old ones (forget about the fact that Rose Byrne is here again because reasons and the character of Havok exists solely to be a bridge to Cyclops); The worst part isn't that over the course of 20 years, NONE of these characters have aged; the fact that these old characters spawn from a timeline beginning in 1962 and ergo should be in their 40s and 50s at least and most of the actors still look like they're mid-30s at OLDEST (how Fassbender turns into Ian McKellan at this rate is simply impossible); No no, these are silly things that I can dismiss because ignorance is bliss and these characters have been too rich to accept as butchered; no, the BIGGEST crime Apocalypse does for its characters is that it completely under-utilizes and absolutely WASTES any potential for the new characters.

  What sold me more than anything with this new film was the introduction of a young Jean, Scott and Storm. Let's not discuss the inclusion of Jubilee in this film who not only doesn't get to use her powers or join any of the action (and frankly does about as much as the kid in X2 who changes the TV channels by blinking), but let's focus on Singer's decision to bless himself with a second chance to do the big three right: Jean, Scott, Storm; a new timeline for them; a legitimate do-over, and then drop the ball entirely. Let's put it this way; The film temporarily uses a young Storm as a villain and she has some of the least dialogue in the ENTIRE film. It's bad enough that the new version of Angel is cool but somehow even more useless than Ben Foster's Angel in Last Stand and poor, gorgeous Olivia Munn as Psylocke literally has maybe one line and the ONE superhero pose where she flips through the air and cuts a car in half  (they use it in literally every ad), but of all the wasted characters, you push STORM as far to the sideline as humanly possible. Once she joins Apocalypse and is seduced by the dark side, she literally has nothing to do than get angry and make lightning strike here and there. It's an absolute atrocity and Halle Berry played the character better every time, even at her worst. But at least they give this version of Storm the Old Yeller treatment and pretty much just put the character out of her misery with the total lack of character development. What they do to Scott and Jean in this film, on the other hand, is almost much, much worse because the film pretends to actually try with them.

  Cyclops gets a brief backstory that seems as if it should be cut-and-pasted in the beginning of the original 2000 X-Men film. After that he doesn't really do much except feel sorry for himself because he has lasers for eyes; Jean is one of the biggest crimes of them all because she's clearly supposed to be the main focus here and she ties most of the film together in the end when it's more like Singer wants to allude to Phoenix and the character's un-measurable power rather than give her legit character development, that it's a waste to use someone with the real young talent of Sophie Turner.

  I honestly can barely even dive into the other characters, not just because it's going to bother me but there's simply just not much to say. Quicksilver once again steals the show but he's pretty much used for one-note jokes and his big scene in the mansion is nothing surprising or pleasant after seeing his delivery in DOFP because it's pretty much the same sequence. His presence is merely for laughs save for brief stabs of poorly attempted character development and that's about it. Nightcrawler is a disgrace as well since he has been my long time favorite X-Men character and here he felt like he was just thrown in because the filmmakers felt bad about leaving him out of all but one other film in the franchise (not to mention Nightcrawler's opening scene in X2 is better than any sequence in Apocalypse combined). They even had the opportunity to bridge the parental connection between Mystique and Nighcrawler or even reference the character's father, Azazel, who was IN First Class, but of course, why build character development?

  The characters are a WASTE, old and new alike and yet almost no other character in the film is more painful to watch than newcomer villain Apocalypse. I won't dive into the quest as to how they got Oscar Isaac to portray this dude the way they did but this has got to be one of the most poorly portrayed, WORST villains in comic book movie history; no exaggeration. I won't dive into the argument of "well in the comics it's supposed to be like THIS," because it's a film adaptation; it's going to be its own thing and I'm okay with filmmakers taking liberty to do their own thing with the source material. But as far as characters go, comics or not, this version of Apocalypse is absolutely DREADFUL. Forget the fact that he's made out to be this big, menacing, god-like, all powerful force. This dude looks half asleep most of the time and whispers throughout MOST of the film. The only reason he can influence ANYBODY under his "all powerful" gifts is because his eyes turn white and BOOP. HYPNOTIZED. I swear, Loki's scepter hypnotizing people was more believable.

So scary omg

  The villain does absolutely NOTHING for the film which ruins the whole experience because him being as bland as he is creates no actual threat for the heroes and yet Singer tries to make him out to be such a big deal by having him cause mass destruction around the globe. And how does Apocalypse cause worldwide mass destruction? Oh, let's remind a vulnerable Magneto that there's metal grounded within the entire earth and have him cause force fields of shrouded metal create mass destruction  in every major city of the entire world. It's like every big comic book movie these days is having a pissing contest to see who can cause more mass destruction and Apocalypse might take the cake. It's lazy writing but it certainly tries to prove it can destroy most of the world and still try and play off a quality film. And for all the chaos and destruction the characters surprisingly don't DO much to stop it. There's LITERALLY a montage of bridges collapsing; missiles going off; huge, iconic buildings crumbling in every major landmark you can think of on planet earth, and while all this chaos is probably racking up casualties with the death toll, all our characters, unconcerned for humanity, end up in one outdoor action set piece in what's supposed to be Egypt but looks like a sandy parking lot, with NO other extras or any gravity or an OUNCE of sensitivity to the people outside of the bubble of Xavier's world. 

  The action sequences are cheap; the CGI still not very good; where the hell did the budget go for this film (seriously)? The film alludes to a built up, ginormous, climatic apocalyptic battle of life and death and by the end of it all, the action beats are no different than big battles in other, much better comic book movies. Hell, the fight in the Statue of Liberty at the end of the first X-Men is more enticing than the big final battle here. And what's worse is that at the end of it all, we settle with this big honky dory ending where everyone's all peachy keen with each other and the world carries on as if the universe DIDN'T almost come to and end. It's 100% outrageous. It's as if no one sat down to actually plan this movie out accordingly.

  At the end of the day, I can't blame the actors. It's not Lawrence's fault she had literally no reason to be around this time except stay in her hot human form (There's a throwaway line regarding the character's choice to do so, assuming Lawrence didn't want to do six hours of makeup each time she had to be blue). I can't blame Fassbender for trying to do so much with the very, very little he was given, and at the end of the day, that's the point here. People may have tried, but the effortless attempts show in every department and it's impossible to hide this time around. The screenplay is a huge problem; the story is just bland; for a movie focusing on the apocalypse it just felt like there really wasn't much at stake. By the time things JUST start to feel unsteady for the characters, you realize the film is almost over, and almost nothing had happened up until that point. So sure Simon Kinberg may just be cashing in phony screenplays for fat checks but the biggest shame here is still on Singer. Of all the people, I can't for the life of me understand how the man who helped change and shape the current age of comic book movies has produced something as bland as his latest Team X-Men film this season. I've always felt X-Men has always been Singer's baby and the only thing Apocalypse insinuates is that he's trying to put his baby down. I'm sure that's not what Singer truly wants but the end result shows literally no purpose for the film other than to cash a paycheck. Days of Future Past made bank so why not make more? Only issue is, DOFP is excellent. This is just a whole different beast entirely (pun might be intended). 

  The reality is, no one is acting like they want to be here this time; actors, writers, director; no one's acting like they want any part of it. The film is sequence after sequence of big CGI disaster set pieces, one after another and yet every character just happens to be sitting and muddling around waiting for bad things to happen. It's absolutely bizarre that THIS was the big follow up to DOFP because the tone is SO drastically, radically different. It's absolutely baffling that the X-Men universe had felt like it was righting its own ship and after two excellent movies of a new universe, one better than the other before it, we somehow reach a shockingly lifeless conclusion of what tries to convince us is "the end times" (For this franchise, it just might be).

  There's a sequence where the young characters are leaving the movie theater after seeing Return of the Jedi, discussing which film was the best but that everyone can agree "the third one is always the worst." I read a review stating that this joke was Singer's way at taking a jab at Brett Ratner for The Last Stand but ironically, with Apocalypse being the third of a new trilogy, it not only makes Singer look like a hypocrite but it indeed makes Last Stand look like X2, and it couldn't be closer to the truth. Because at least the characters in that film had a purpose and to an extent were merely fun to watch at the very least. THIS film, however, just feels like a made-for-TV limp to the finish line. It's not TERRIBLE, per se, but it definitely does for the franchise what Spider-Man 3 did for Toby's; For a trilogy, it takes a plausible first act, a phenomenal second act and brings it all crumbling down in the final act; the finale of this new trilogy simply doesn't even compare to the worst films before it. Like I said, Origins essentially runs circles around this (and THAT's saying something). Apocalypse feels closer in tone to the last Hobbit film more than anything; there sure is a load of crappy CGI and the characters sure do want me to believe that they're fighting the most important battle in the world but at the end of the day, there's zero character development and the rich plot has worn sickly thin.

  It's just a damn shame the final cut of the lifeless yet somehow bladder-challenging film filled as much space as they did with so many useless sequences. I read up the last few months on scenes of the young newcomers that were seemingly trimmed from the film entirely; bits of Jean, Scott and the gang going to the mall; going to the record store; embracing in glorious 80s pop culture (there were even tons of hidden 80s-pop promos online to get fans hyped for the new film); scenes that would have helped us get to know the new characters a little more; give them room to really breathe. Strangely enough, all these sequences were completely axed on the cutting room floor and I can't help but feel that all one would need is to include more scenes like those and trim some of the uselessly ominous, whispering Apocalypse scenes and the film MIGHT have stood a chance. But this old dog REALLY took a toll on years worth of franchise history.

  And speaking of history, there's nothing more infuriating in this new timeline of films than the inclusion of a glorified cameo to remind us that this film somehow co-exists in a universe with older and somehow MUCH better films. The scene that plays out is arguably THE best part of the entire flick but that's mostly because we're getting hyped about dipping into the past from films that feel like they're from an entirely different franchise at this point. Coming from someone who loves the old universe and someone who gets excited by the references to the glory days in the new universe, I couldn't just help but feel like the nods were thrown in to make us reminisce in a franchise that once felt so glorified and so rich when it's instead more of a sour reminder that this franchise has suddenly hit such a bizarre wall.

  And before I get repetitive, let me again just reiterate that the most offensive act Apocalypse isn't that it's "bad." Call it bad all you want but that's not the bigger  picture here. The worst thing the film does is that it unwinds the hard work DOFP did to tie all this story up in a neat bow and even worse, it taints any of the quality films that have come before it (there's only so much I'd call "quality" up until this point but we've evolved into the fans we've become dammit; we love our mutated baby of a franchise for what it is) and we've come too far as fans to accept complete and utter garbage for this gloriously, unanimously (sloppily) connected franchise we've come to love and defend over the last 16 years.

 Now am I calling Apocalypse utter garbage? Absolutely not (in fact, there are very few but legitimately existent parts I actually liked about the film), but let's put it this way. As far as 2016's comic book movie roster goes, I have YET to meet someone who can legitimately defend Batman v. Superman more than myself. I wholeheartedly understand the movie's incredibly flawed and I get where people are coming from with the negative criticism but I've never seen a film that I've felt has received so much undeserved negative backlash than BvS. With that said, I found BvS to be infinitely better, all around, in every department than this new X-Men film. The fact that Rotten Tomatoes has BvS sitting at a 27% and Apocalypse sitting at about a 47% is completely asinine to me becaus if I had it my way, both of those percentages would be flipped at the very least and that would only be the beginning of fixing the Tomatometer. All this to say, it's further proof that legit calculations or not, sometimes the critics really don't always get it right and for Batman v. Superman being the most hated comic book movie in quite some time, it looks like The Dark Knight compared to this new X-Men film.

  So why write SO much about X-Men at this point? Because for the first time, I feel like the series has actually kind of betrayed me. Dramatic I'm sure, but hear me out. No this new movie isn't outright terrible but if Wolverine came back in time again, it certainly wouldn't hurt to give these gifted youngsters another do-over. Fans have worked too hard at investing time and defense mechanisms for finding a place in their heart for Xavier's messy mansion of flawed films. But for Charles' sake, no X-Men movie should feel THIS phoned in. After the continuity not only being "fixed" at this point, but fixed in part of what is arguably THE best X-Men film, the follow up just simply shouldn't have been what we got in the end. For X-Men, it's truly difficult to top DOFP, but as I've said, apocalypse or not, no one put in an effort this round. And for all the radical stories these mutants take part in, it's just a shame because there is still SO much potential to breathe life into this fractured franchise. Singer literally REWROTE his timeline; he LITERALLY gave himself a second shot and somehow he blew it. With a talented young cast and and some good brains behind the creative justices here, the films simply deserve better; the fans deserve better. And while I don't think we're ready for Marvel Studios to buy and reboot the mutant brand just yet, I do think Fox needs to either call it quits with the X-Men or come up with a new plan, STAT. We've rewritten history; we have a talented cast and crew. Let's start telling quality stories again... Or just make more Deadpool movies. Yeah. Mutant Deadpool and proud.