We've been doing this a long time, you and I. I'm amazed you keep coming back. Honestly, who'd have thought? I mean, here I am, just sitting here on my computer, typing whatever the hell I want to type about these ridiculous super hero movies that the big companies continue to churn out. And you read it. You actually freaking read it!!! You are the best kind of lemmings this merc could have ever asked for. I'd cry if I were capable of any human emotion behind a keyboard. Or am I? I mean, I guess I could say I'm crying right now. Would that work? Because yeah, I'm TOTALLY doing that right now... Yeah. >_>
So Apocalypse is really here. Of all the big bad X-Men villains we've seen, we finally get one of the actual biggest and baddest EVAR. The Age of Apocalypse comic event was one of Marvel's biggest. By biggest I don't mean in sales, but in sheer size! Seriously, you try being a young pre-teen, and grasping the idea that part 2 of a story is in a completely different X-Men book than the last! "To read part 1, get X-Men: Alpha #1, for part 2, read Age of Apocalypse: The Chosen, and for part 3, read X-Men Super Power Omega Ramalamadingdong, etc." You people are all lucky you have graphic novels and the internet to make heads or tails of that one!
So I'll get the obvious glaring issue out of the way first, before we get into the details of the movie itself. I know you all saw the same pictures I did, and began judging and casting those first stones. The Apocalypse in this movie obviously doesn't look much like the Apocalypse of the comics. In fact, it looks downright bad! It's like Ivan Ooze had sex with the alien from Prometheus or something! (What? If people can talk about how ugly I looked in MY movie, then I can do the same for this Papa Smurf reject!) Seriously, when freaking cosplayers can get the look down better, you might be doing something wrong. But that's exactly what I find so odd. Just about everything else was done SO RIGHT! Psylocke looks like Psylocke! Storm looks like Storm! The snozberries taste like snozberries!!! Everything looked dead on except for him, and it's troublesome...
WITH that glaring flaw out of the way, let's go into the actual movie. There is a lot going on here. Like, so much so, that I can honestly say there is no filler to be found. There wouldn't have been any time for it, there was THAT much really happening. Apocalypse as a character, dates back to before 3600 BC, going back to a time of pyramids and really awkward loincloth-wearing. Even more frustrating is the fact that he is knocked out and goes to sleep for thousands of years, preventing me from asking him if any of the things that frizzy-haired guy in Ancient Aliens said were true (I mean, it's not like I REALLY think anything he said is accurate, but.. I'd just... like... to know, you know!?...). So lucky us, he awakens, in 1983, just in time to set the premise of this new movie, featuring all of the younger actors we've seen these past few films. I think it's safe to say at this point, that the movies have basically undergone a reboot, featuring all of the newer actors, save for one special cameo, near and dear to my cruel and irredeemable heart.
We get to see the origins of other popular mutants, like Jean Grey, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Storm, Jubilee, and many many others. I think one of the main reasons it was so hard to breathe with the pacing of this film, was that there were simply SO many characters to cover, you could fill and entire clown car and beyond with them! This was already on top of the established characters from the previous movies (Mystique, Professor Xavier, Beast, and others). This movie is the anti-Dragon Ball Z. It wasted absolutely no time in getting us going. Stick that up your pipe and smoke it, Vegeta! (Please don't hurt me, I'm allergic to attacks with the name "Big Bang" in them...)
Despite all of these great new origins, and a really excellent cast, we don't get a lot of time to see them develop because of it. Now, this is fine for all of the established characters we already know and love, but for the newcomers, it's a bit more difficult. That's not to say they didn't have ANY development at all (with Scott and Jean being the main exceptions); just that they all had a lot to compete with for screen time. I'm just saying, not having many X-Men in my first movie is turning into a blessing the more I continue to watch this.
The movie has structure, don't get me wrong. In fact, the plot was very detailed and layered, hence having to move at suck a brisk pace. It almost felt like some moments lost their meaning due to quickness. It's like "This happens. Then this happens. And then we move on to the section where this happens!" You'd think Quicksilver wrote this movie, it went along so fast! Isaac Asimov kind of wrote that way too, and it seemed to work for the Foundation books, but you don't even know what that is, so why I am I bothering... So anyway, the movie felt like every scene had to rush in order to meet some super duper quota! But I don't want to make this all sound like a bad thing. I still came out pretty satisfied in the end. Why? Proceed to next paragraph.
Thank you for proceeding to the next paragraph. But seriously, proceed to the NEXT paragraph for an actual answer to the question.
Trust me when I say that this movie had multiple shining moments. There are two really obvious ones that come to mind: Quicksilver (who pretty much steals the movie AGAIN, whether you like it or not!), and that super awesomazing cameo that I'm supposed to keep a secret (even though I'm pretty sure most of you already know who it is... TEE HEE!). If these two moments alone don't make you feel like this was worth seeing, then I don't even know why you come to these movies in the first place! I feel we need to create a new Oscar for "Best use of slo-mo in a musical montage," just so we can give it to Evan Peters and call it a day. All of his major scenes, both from the last film and this one, have had the audience absolutely howling with laughter, and that's no small feat, as there were no wolves present in the audience (that I'm aware of). I also got a chuckle out of the movie's use of Metallica's "The Four Horseman" track here. When you pay attention to the plot of the movie, you'll know why that song's inclusion is actually funny as hell.
Apocalypse is supposed to be a big deal in the X-Men universe, and thankfully, the movie does him justice in that regard, Ivan Ooze similarities be damned! He is completely menacing, and has shown that he is easily one of the most powerful mutants in existence. Once again, I am glad he is not in my movie! The final fight scene at the end really brought things to a peak. You were left almost speechless by the time the dust settled, and I mean that in a great way.
So despite all of my issues with the pacing of the movie, I still ended up enjoying myself a hell of a lot, as did most of my other peeps who were already fans of this series to begin with. Some may criticize Bryan Singer's direction with these movies, but he's A-OKAY in my book! This may not grip you the same way that First Class or Days of Future Passed did, but the fact that a third entry by the same director can still turn out this well is quite surprising in itself. And rest assured, these X-Men movies by Fox are far from over... TL;DR - Stop looking for things to hate on and just enjoy them for what they are!!!... Unless they're sexist, racist, bigoted, or homophobic. F@#K that s@#t.
7.5 Dangling Plot Threads Out Of 10
Hey Fox, now that you're going to make a hell of a lot of money off of an X-Men movie once again, how about putting a little more money back into the Deadpool sequel's direction? I've proven I can make you more money than you give me to work with, so what's the problem!? Look, if this is about that time I accidentally started that fire after purposely killing that guy, I can explain!!!...
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