X-Men: Apocalypse - May 27, 2016

[a-dev]

That's not true. He randomly likes some weird ****. I think he's got a shot at Best Millennial at this year's Khevvies.

Yeah RIDDICK isn't as easy to predict as people think.

 

[IrishJedi]

That's not true. He randomly likes some weird ****. I think he's got a shot at Least Terrible Millennial at this year's Khevvies.

Fixed with the proper name of the Award.

 

[YoNoSe]

Fixed with the proper name of the Award.

That's why we formed the committee!

 

[IrishJedi]

 

[Khev]

That's not true. He randomly likes some weird ****. I think he's got a shot at Best Millennial at this year's Khevvies.

He's definitely in the running. He's like the velociraptors in Jurassic World, you never know if he'll be with you or against you on any given film.

"Now I know why why wouldn't tell us what the target audience for this movie is, it's part RIDDICK."

 

[Darth Snoopy]

Riddick you can skip as well because there really is no just one Riddick, he is comprised of a hive algorithm consisting of 143 milion simultaneous virtual thought patterns within a quantum field of narrative reduction into a force wave of probability review outcomes.

I thought Riddick was several dogs pretending to be one human being!?

 

[greygoose]

I thought Riddick was several dogs pretending to be one human being!?

That's class!

 

[Darth Snoopy]

 

[kryptonianmutie]

I thought Riddick was several dogs pretending to be one human being!?

 

[jye4ever]

Anyway here's my (disjointed) commentary:

Spoiler

It's a slow film, huge swathes of set-up.

Mystique, well, it's not so much J-Laws performance for me as I just don't rate that character highly enough to see her basically have Wolverine's role from DOFP, right down to uselessly getting her @$$ kicked at the finale.

Even Apocalypse underwhelms. He kills a smattering of people here and there, then he erects a new temple in Cairo, killing some CGI there. After that it's all Magneto. And I find it problematic because Magneto surely kills many thousands in this film yet at the end it seems he has gotten away with it scot-free, no one blaming him at all, even crediting him with aiding in the defeat of Apocalypse. I didn't get the impression Apocalypse took over his mind, he just influenced him - as Xavier himself says - he tapped into Magneto's rage (which was already there, he kills a few people even before he meets Apocalypse) - so how in the hell is Magneto not accountable for the death and destruction he causes in this film? How is Xavier having his usual banter with him at the end of the movie? How was this not the last straw in their relationship? Makes no sense, this should have changed things from both their perspectives. It apparently doesn't. At the end everything is the same, the same as we've seen in all the films prior - Xavier looking for hope and seeing the good in Magneto. Magneto smirking and distancing himself again while talking about the humans ''coming for'' the mutants. He still has neither gone full villain or full hero. The cycle seems set to repeat next time out and while it's been good and it's provided the real meaty stuff in the previous films, it's all getting a bit repetitious at this point.

Despite the movie title and despite the destruction the film feels remarkably low-stakes. As I read earlier in the thread the world feels 'empty'. The only human element we see while the destruction and presumed death is going on is the usual scenes of military guys in a briefing room talking about casualty projections like in a Roland Emmerich film. The rest is long distance shots of the city being ripped up. Not even particularly good CGI, hard to feel connected with any of it. That's the problem when they keep upping the scales, eventually it's just visual noise on screen - nothing like the sea-confrontation at Cuba in First Class or even that tense future/70s juxtaposition finale of DOFP. I mean sure, when the X-men finally arrive to tackle Apocalypse there's a bit more one-on-one stuff but it's all still taking place in an empty la-la CGI land at that point.

The Wolverine scene felt really unnecessary - it had no bearing on anything in this film - presumably just set-up for his final solo film.

The main Quicksilver scene was good, although even that threatened to go on too long.

Your review is so perfect it's not even funny.

I had a feeling that the conflicts would remain the same. Rinse repeat!

Marvel also has done a much better job in presenting impact on society and population in their movies with WB coming second and Fox taking up the rear (DP included).

It's as Fox just wants to keep repeating the same conflict over and over but with more CGI.

Oh well I will still be there opening night because I at least want to see Phoenix and Cyclops have more of a presense during action scenes this time around.

 

[a-dev]

Your review is so perfect it's not even funny.

I had a feeling that the conflicts would remain the same. Rinse repeat!

Marvel also has done a much better job in presenting impact on society and population in their movies with WB coming second and Fox taking up the rear (DP included).

It's as Fox just wants to keep repeating the same conflict over and over but with more CGI.

Oh well I will still be there opening night because I at least want to see Phoenix and Cyclops have more of a presense during action scenes this time around.

I'll say one thing for Man of Steel - and I may not have given it enough credit for this in the past - you do get a human sense of fear and horror in the midst of all the destruction - notably when you see Perry White and a few of the other Daily Planet people trying to escape and becoming trapped. It made the situation feel as serious as it should*. There's nothing like that in X-Men: Apocalypse at all.

*at this point my main objection to the destruction in Man of Steel is that I still think it was too soon to see a brand new iteration of Superman dealing with that. Such a massive event should have been further along in his career IMO (and he certainly shouldn't have been killed off in only his second film FFS)

 

[jye4ever]

I'll say one thing for Man of Steel - and I may not have given it enough credit for this in the past - you do get a human sense of fear and horror in the midst of all the destruction - notably when you see Perry White and a few of the other Daily Planet people trying to escape and becoming trapped. It made the situation feel as serious as it should*. There's nothing like that in X-Men: Apocalypse at all.

*at this point my main objection to the destruction in Man of Steel is that I still think it was too soon to see a brand new iteration of Superman dealing with that. Such a massive event should have been further along in his career IMO (and he certainly shouldn't have been killed off in only his second film FFS)

MOS and beginning of BvS did good with showing us the impact of their actions, as has the MCU.

That task is made even more difficult when fictional cities are used.

 

[wolfdog51]

Watched a copy online, don't think I'm going to bother seeing it in the theater. I was mostly bored with it. Shame because I liked First Class and DOFP.

 

[karamazov80]

Probably not the best promotional partner when people are saying your movie stinks.

View attachment 265807

 

[YoNoSe]

lol

Whenever I see a washed up celebrity pushing their tell-all "biography" I always think "buy my book! buy my book!"

 

[Khev]

I must say I'm quite looking forward to karamazov's review of this. I know he might just do his "forgive Singer of all sins" thing and still say, "not his best but better than the MCU, bla bla bla" but I can't help but think that there's the slightest chance we might be in for a treat if his reaction is full "Man of Steel."

 

[jye4ever]

kara is too intelligent and sophisticated to end up liking this movie, he will prefer BvS, watch.

 

[pturtle]

Well, I saw it and I don’t really know how I would score it. Most of the film is excellent, but man, that third act was so bad it ruined the entire movie for me. The action, the acting, dialogue, just everything in the final battle felt like it was directed by Brett Ratner. It was so bad that it ruined just about everything that came before it.

Its definitely not as bad as X3 but everything in the 3rd act is on that level or even worse. Its a shame because most of the movie is actually pretty good.

 

[DiFabio]

Remember what I said about Singer and second unit directors a couple of months back. Guarantee that's going to pop up in the coming weeks after all this criticism. I wonder how they're going to spin the blu ray documentaries.

 

[Khev]

Well, I saw it and I don’t really know how I would score it. Most of the film is excellent, but man, that third act was so bad it ruined the entire movie for me. The action, the acting, dialogue, just everything in the final battle felt like it was directed by Brett Ratner. It was so bad that it ruined just about everything that came before it.

Its definitely not as bad as X3 but everything in the 3rd act is on that level or even worse. Its a shame because most of the movie is actually pretty good.

Did you mean to paste your Fant4stic review in the X-Men thread?