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X-Men: Apocalypse
STARRING: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Oscar Isaac
DIRECTORS: Bryan Singer
Genre: Superhero
Rating: PG-15
144 mins
Another week, another superhero film. I feel like I’ve written that sentence so many times recently that I’m struggling to type this with a déjà vu-induced headache.
Still, I turned up to a screening of X-Men: Apocalypse in a positive frame of mind, rather than ‘here we go again’. The franchise, based around super-powered mutants and their battles against even more powerful villains, has always been one of my favourite costumed capers because of the focus on characters and themes rather than huge battles and special effects.
Unfortunately, to its detriment, Apocalypse has shifted too far into the territory of the latter. Perhaps it’s a product of the current climate, with director Bryan Singer feeling the need to throw the budget into elaborate set pieces and digital sequences to compete with the plethora of other comic book films being served up.
Luckily, the movie retains enough of its humanity and engaging interplay between its characters to ensure this remains a stellar, just not spectacular, entry.
The scene is set with an outstanding prologue set in ancient Egypt. The psychic mutant En Sabah Nur (Isaac) rules over his kingdom until he is betrayed by his worshippers and entombed alive. His lieutenants, the Four Horsemen, die protecting and preserving him.
As the first and most powerful mutant in the universe, he has the ability to absorb the powers of other mutants around him. This makes him immortal and invincible, so it’s no surprise that he awakens again in 1983 under the new guise of ‘Apocalypse’.
He believes that without his presence over the last few thousand years, humanity has lost its way. As such, he sets out to destroy the world and remake it in his image with the help of his new Horsemen, of which the disillusioned Magneto (Fassbender) is one.
As usual, Professor X (McAvoy) and his band of mutant students including Mystique (Lawrence) must band together to stop the threat.
The film introduces a swathe of new teenage mutants to get to grips with, and it can become quite confusing. The script does a fairly smooth job of getting everyone up to speed and sharing the screen time out in ample amounts, integrating each X-Man’s individual story into the wider narrative.
Of the first-timers, Sophie Turner’s Jean Grey is the most impressive. Luckily for her she ended up at Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters after she fled from Ramsay Bolton in Winterfell, and she sows the seeds for the intriguing character she will grow into.
Sadly, the film falls on predictable elements too often. Fans of the franchise will spot a very familiar recurring pattern rear its head again. At first, Professor X and his occasional best friend, occasional archenemy Magneto are against each other in their ideology – can humans and mutants live together in harmony? – and then something happens that brings them together to fight a villain stronger and more deadly than either of them.
They bond to ensure the status quo is kept, and then when they conquer the threat, say a sad goodbye and exclaim sadness that their ideologies can’t coincide.
A similar cause for sadness is the under-utilising of Oscar Isaac, a terrific actor not given enough meat to sink his teeth into here. Apocalypse has great potential as an antagonist, but unfortunately the movie uses him more as a catalyst to bring back characters from their new lives, as well as fortifying the next generation of gifted mutants.
He fails to develop into a meaningful antagonist in his own right. Despite numerous well-delivered, ominous speeches, for a character heralding the end of the world he carries surprisingly little menace.
If more time was spent developing his ideology and what he wants his new world to look like rather than the recruitment of his lackeys and why he hates the current world, he’d have been better off.
Luckily, the action scenes are fantastic, and once again Quicksilver steals the show and manages to top his sequence from Days of Future Past. It not only perfectly conveys the extent of his abilities but also something about his personality, too.
Ultimately, Apocalypse is a fun and entertaining adventure that does a good job of establishing the next phase of mutants, but fails to deliver a substantial conclusion to the current crop.
More time spent on fleshing out the antagonist and focussing on characters, something this series usually excels at, would have been the way to go rather than falling into the modern trap of ‘bigger is always better’.
Showing in Novo Cinemas, Cineco, Seef II, Saar, Al Jazira, Wadi Al Sail, Dana Cineplex
Rating: 3/5
