X-Men Apocalypse

Potential-Monke

Just back from it, and having not read anything in this thread, and having heard bad reviews from critics but some friends loving it, I went in expecting a good film. But, I thought it was more than good. Not excellent, but still quite good.

I'm probably not going to say anything others on here have not already said, but even though Apocalypse didn't come across as as big of a threat as he should have been, he was menacing enough. Don't know why though, with all that power, he didn't just start tearing the world apart, seeing as you see him do it quite often. I know the story said he needed this and that, but he could have got all that without recruiting 4 buddies. And yes, he needed Magneto to

get his pyramid back out of the ground, even though he could probably have done that himself

, but other than that, his motives seemed pointless in recruiting.

But, I still enjoyed it. I knew what to expect, over the top action, skimpy costumes for the sexiest of the crew, plot holes and unexplained parts, humour, attempts at feelings, and a now necessary decision to leave the brain at the door. That's the problem with X-Men, it just can't be given the 90's cartoon justice it deserves in film. I heard there's going to be an X-Men tv series, and that will suit this better. I know it probably won't have the main X-Cast, but it will work better on the smaller screen.

I'd love if the Marvel Cinematic Universe crew were given the X-Men to build into their universe, as I just know they'd do a better job, having them stand alone doesn't seem to be working as great as they'd hope. I loved the reboot, they done a fantastic job with it, but I still think it would work better in the MCU.

Finally, Quicksilver. Some people on here saying his scenes weren't as good as DoFP, but that's because it came out of nowhere in that. We knew there was going to be another slow mo scene, and we all wondered how it would top the prison break. But I think they did it better in this. In both of his scenes. I was beaming from ear to ear during the

house explosion

, and similarly during the

Apocalypse fight, however short it was

, but they have nailed how Quicksilver moves in his own pace. Just the right amount of "AWESOME!!!" and funny. I'd love to see a stand alone film about him, but I don't think he could carry it for 90 minutes. Feck it, I just want to see Quicksilver shorts all in this exact slow mo style!

SpaceCowb0y

I never make judgements on a movie based on anyone else's thoughts. I watched this two nights ago and sat down to it with an open mind and zero expectations neither good or bad.

It is what it is, a superhero move. Explosions, good guys, bad guys, lots of CGI and something I can switch my brain off to for a couple of hours. I liked it. It wasn't on the level of Civil War, but it was an enjoyable movie all the same.

I think McAvoy really looked the part of Dr X from the comics once he went bald, even more so than Stewart. I also really liked Quicksilver's scenes. I found him irritating in DoFP but thought they really made good use of the character and developed his personality this time around.

Fassbaneder can do no wrong in my eyes, that guy is just a brilliant actor! that scene

in the woods

it's rare to see that level of emotion in a superhero movie. Olivia Munn as Psylocke :eek: I dont care how little she had to say or even if she isn't a great actress, she looked EXACTLY like the comic book character and that was enough for me ha.

Also looking forward to seeing them develop the Storm character, this was the look i remember from the comics albeit she was an older stronger woman in the comics so will be cool to see the girl who played the part grow in to the role over time.


Things i didn't quite like:
Tye Sheridan as Cyclops. Don't know exactly why i didn't like it as i'm a fan of his in general, the kid is a good actor but just wasn't feeling it. I preferred his brother Havok

shame they killed him off, would have been a good character to have in future movies. Wasn't he a younger brother in the comics though?

.

Sophie Turner, i know her character in GoT is finally taking a turn to a more stronger role and I know this movie is completely unrelated but i just can't stop myself from seeing her as a whiny, pathetic little girl.

Apocalypse. I don't think i need to point out the obvious flaws in this character so I wont, he didn't live up to the comic book version or even come close so i'll leave it at that.

Regardless of anything else, surely the one thing they needed to get right was Apocalypse. I mean, he's in the friggin' title. But they failed. Instead they gave us a limp cod in platform shoes.

Tefral

Deleted User wrote: »

Regardless of anything else, surely the one thing they needed to get right was Apocalypse. I mean, he's in the friggin' title. But they failed. Instead they gave us a limp cod in platform shoes.

Fully agree.

And not to derail the thread but my fear is they will do the same to Thanos.

They just cant get the villains right.

Ben Gadot

cronin_j wrote: »

Fully agree.

And not to derail the thread but my fear is they will do the same to Thanos.

They just cant get the villains right.

Thanos, at the very least, looks like he's going to be a physically imposing specimen. He's going to tower over the avengers.

Ben Gadot

Ben Gadot wrote: »

Thanos, at the very least, looks like he's going to be a physically imposing specimen. He's going to tower over the avengers.

Apocalypse should have.

pixelburp

An all-powerful anybody is next to impossible to portray properly in a commercial-driven franchise; they can't put the heroes in any real peril thanks to the power and pull of the lead actors, so all those superpowered beings can do is stomp around and make grandiose threats. Thanos might look more imposing sure, but unless Marvel breaks the habit of Phases 1 & 2, I don't expect things to be any different in the MCU.

SpaceCowb0y

cronin_j wrote: »

Fully agree.

And not to derail the thread but my fear is they will do the same to Thanos.

They just cant get the villains right.

I wouldn't worry about that at all, X-Men are owned and produced by Fox the rest of the MCU is looked after by Disney and so far they have done great things IMO.

Hercule Poirot

This is a problem with superhero franchises in general, in order to make the villain villainous they bring in a minor character just for that film, have them killed off by the villain but the main cast remains untouched - like, Hawkeye left to be with his family, they could have killed him off so that Ultron would have had a lasting effect but no, the city comes down from the sky and the only hero to die is someone who we only met at the beginning of the film

And yes

they killed off Havok in Apocalypse but it wasn't through any great act of villainy

- this idea of villains making great speeches and doing little else is starting to get dull. We need to see a villain that actually kills multiple heroes for them to have any impact.

SpaceCowb0y

Hercule Poirot wrote: »

This is a problem with superhero franchises in general, in order to make the villain villainous they bring in a minor character just for that film, have them killed off by the villain but the main cast remains untouched - like, Hawkeye left to be with his family, they could have killed him off so that Ultron would have had a lasting effect but no, the city comes down from the sky and the only hero to die is someone who we only met at the beginning of the film

And yes

they killed off Havok in Apocalypse but it wasn't through any great act of villainy

- this idea of villains making great speeches and doing little else is starting to get dull. We need to see a villain that actually kills multiple heroes for them to have any impact.

Agreed.. it would be nice to see some sort of continuity with the villains, at least Thanos is as sort of super villain that has brief appearances scattered throughout the Marvel movies making his presence knows to the audience and his impending arrival rather than a single appearance and killed off straight away.

I'd like to think there could be multiple villains in all of the extended universes that could feature numerous times so it was more like they were defeated and ran away to fight again another day then the good guys get the job done again "Go team" crap we get at the end of most.

Foxtrol

Hercule Poirot wrote: »

This is a problem with superhero franchises in general, in order to make the villain villainous they bring in a minor character just for that film, have them killed off by the villain but the main cast remains untouched - like, Hawkeye left to be with his family, they could have killed him off so that Ultron would have had a lasting effect but no, the city comes down from the sky and the only hero to die is someone who we only met at the beginning of the film.

Given the aggressive foreshadowing of Hawkeye dying, I actually enjoyed the death of Quicksilver. Not only was it surprising but I think it helped the character development of Scarlet Witch. I don’t think there needs to be deaths for the sake of death, they need to help the narrative. I think the late death of Quicksilver has a much greater knock on to the ongoing story than Hawkeye would have.

When there is a death to cause menace it needs to be just that, menacing. For example, Apocalypse taking out Havoc should have been a lot more direct, rather than him being caught in his own explosion it should have been by Apocalypse’s own hands.

Hercule Poirot

Foxtrol wrote: »

Given the aggressive foreshadowing of Hawkeye dying, I actually enjoyed the death of Quicksilver. Not only was it surprising but I think it helped the character development of Scarlet Witch. I don’t think there needs to be deaths for the sake of death, they need to help the narrative. I think the late death of Quicksilver has a much greater knock on to the ongoing story than Hawkeye would have.

When there is a death to cause menace it needs to be just that, menacing. For example, Apocalypse taking out Havoc should have been a lot more direct, rather than him being caught in his own explosion it should have been by Apocalypse’s own hands.

I can't agree about Hawkeye, they had made such a point of all that he would lose that I never feared for his life - they went overboard with the forshadowing that it wasn't going to happen. I agree that Quicksilver's death wasn't completely pointless but I'm constantly underwhelmed with the fact that the heroes very rarely suffer the consequences of repeatedly saving the world, Iron Man's paranoia after the Avengers for the duration of one film and was suddenly forgotten about, there are no lasting consequences for any of the big guns

BMMachine

they are afraid to lose any of their stars in that film.
The best story they could make would have been Mystique getting killed by Apoc in that film BUT YOU CAN'T KILL JENNIFER LAWRENCE WHAT WILL PEOPLE THINK.

Limp

Foxtrol

Hercule Poirot wrote: »

I can't agree about Hawkeye, they had made such a point of all that he would lose that I never feared for his life - they went overboard with the forshadowing that it wasn't going to happen. I agree that Quicksilver's death wasn't completely pointless but I'm constantly underwhelmed with the fact that the heroes very rarely suffer the consequences of repeatedly saving the world, Iron Man's paranoia after the Avengers for the duration of one film and was suddenly forgotten about, there are no lasting consequences for any of the big guns

I agree consequences are an issue with the X-men universe (as I’ve said repeatedly on this thread, there seems to be no bigger picture plan between this trilogy) but you cant say that about MCU (aside from them not killing the big names).

I don’t want to totally drag the thread off topic but we see Iron Man’s paranoia in IM3 (all the suits), it drive him to build Ultron in AOU, which leads to his positioning and the events in Civil War, when he realises the damage his paranoia has done. It’s that building over movies which I appreciate and where X-Men sorely lacks (they cant even sort out the most basic continuity)

Penn

Just watched it there. Not a good film. Not terrible, but not good. Just... okay.

The JLaw pushing was ridiculous. From the trailers it was clear she'd be a big part of it, but f*ck me, mutants worshipping her as a hero? Nonsense.

Sophie Turner was weak as hell. Still don't like Quicksilver. Cyclops/Angel/Psylocke/Storm were all just so bland, both in terms of character and use of powers. Beast is good when he's actually Beast, just boring otherwise. Apocalypse was disappointing. Never felt too menacing. The introduction and death of Magnetos family was poorly done. And the insane amount of destruction caused by Magneto... why? Why not just keep the damage located to where they were? It added nothing to the story or film to show the Sydney Opera House or Golden Gate Bridge. And Stryker... f*ck sake have we not had enough of Stryker by now?

Then we have, once again, complete abandonment of continuity. Nobody has aged even slightly in 20 years (and Quicksilver has seemingly done absolutely nothing in 10 years, which given how slowly he perceives time must have felt like 100 years). Cyclops just gained his power (I guess he forgot about having destroyed his school with his powers and being rescued from Stryker by Prof.X and Wolverine back in the 70's). Even if we take it that DOFP changed the future enough that that didn't happen, still throws Cyclops' age and when he got his powers way off. Same with the ages of Angel and Nightcrawler.

There were some positives. I quite liked Nightcrawler surprisingly. McAvoy and Fassbender were good (though not a patch in their first class performances in First Class). Some of the action was well done and the final blast with pretty much everyone hitting Apocalypse with their powers was pretty cool.

But yeah... disappointing, and very slow for the first hour.

If they're going to do more X-Men films, they'd be better off ending continuity with Wolverine 3, rebooting the whole thing, and keep Deadpool as is so he can make jokes about the reboot.

SimonTemplar

Just saw it having rewatched DOFP yesterday. I don't think it is the disaster some reviews are saying but it is a significant drop in quality from the previous movie and definitely the worst of the Singer directed movies. There are some good individual scenes, such as Erik in the forest or Quicksilver's mansion rescue, but overall the film felt very plodding and lacking focus.

I haven't read the comics so I don't know Apocalypse's comic-book portrayal, but he had zero presence or charisma in this movie despite his seemingly unlimited power. I also didn't like how Magneto effectively became Apocalypse's henchman. Magneto, in the films anyway, was always either a lone wolf or a leader, so seeing him essentially serving the needs of another villain seemed a little off to me.

I actually really liked Lawrence's Raven in DOFT and felt she had a good story in that movie, but I definitely felt she was shoehorned into this movie just for the sake of it. I also think they could have developed the Jean/Phoenix storyline a bit more rather than the 'tick-the-box' expositional scenes we got before the final battle. When Jean finally did release her full potential, it should have been a great cathartic moment, but instead it just came across as another mutant using her powers and nothing more.

The greatest strength of this series, both the original and the prequel trilogies, has been the relationship between Charles and Erik. I wish this movie had less meaningless CGI destruction and focused more on that dynamic. The ending of Civil War had a more personal climax and I wish the same was true for this movie too.

razorblunt

pixelburp wrote: »

An all-powerful anybody is next to impossible to portray properly in a commercial-driven franchise; they can't put the heroes in any real peril thanks to the power and pull of the lead actors, so all those superpowered beings can do is stomp around and make grandiose threats. Thanos might look more imposing sure, but unless Marvel breaks the habit of Phases 1 & 2, I don't expect things to be any different in the MCU.

This sums it up very very neatly for me.
I'm not a comic book fan at al but I enjoy the "disengage brain, eat popcorn" nature of these movies, so I'm not tied to any character in any comic book movie really, but I'm sitting there waiting to be entertained as I already know that none of the "important" folk will be killed off.

I actually thought at one point we were going to see that in this movie I have to say.

I haven't seen DoFP, so this was my first time seeing Quicksilver and I have to say I liked him, not a huge fan of the actor but he was well suited to this.

Also fair dues to the fella from Eastenders.

allibastor

Saw this also,

Found it poor. Apocalypse was just wrong in every way. He never did the body swap in comics, and as powerful as he was he made sure he had people who had the skills he lacked. Here he just kind of pulled powers from his backside.

I thought the best bit was quicksilver, he was funny and scene was good.
I like Jlaw but fel the shoehorning was a bit much, much like wolverinehampton in the first few films.

The aging thing also is a bit of a let down, magneto must be 50+ in this one, considering he was what, 10-14, in first class?

Overall, not great!

Brief_Lives

Just watched it in an empty Madrid cinema last night..
Entertaining...surprisingly stronger end than start...
Fox really don't give a **** about the comics...

I hope McAvoy and Fassbinder continue their roles...

I hope Fassbender leaves to be honest. Magneto needs to not be in any for a while.

There was no need for him in the Apocalypse storyline, nor will there be in Sinister's (except maybe at the end with potentially

Savage Lands

Leave him out for an arc and return with House of M

pixelburp

pixelburp wrote: »

An all-powerful anybody is next to impossible to portray properly in a commercial-driven franchise; they can't put the heroes in any real peril thanks to the power and pull of the lead actors, so all those superpowered beings can do is stomp around and make grandiose threats. Thanos might look more imposing sure, but unless Marvel breaks the habit of Phases 1 & 2, I don't expect things to be any different in the MCU.

Given the contract expiration and likes of Evans wanting to retire I can see Infinity take its toll on the roster

CINCLANTFLT

I'd like to see more of Olivia Munn... mmmmmmm

CINCLANTFLT

CINCLANTFLT wrote: »

I'd like to see more of Olivia Munn... mmmmmmm

Google and you'll see plenty.

Don't know how she got an acting job, regardless of how she looks

CINCLANTFLT

Deleted User wrote: »

Google and you'll see plenty.

Don't know how she got an acting job, regardless of how she looks

I did...

Nervous Wreck

Deleted User wrote: »

Google and you'll see plenty.

Don't know how she got an acting job, regardless of how she looks

Munn is fantastic. The problem with Apocalypse was a shît script, poor direction, a lack of creative vision and a lazy approach to the genre.

BoJack Horseman

Forgive the resurection, Seen in the Gawkerverse a deleted scene that would have been fun to see in the slog that was the film

http://io9.gizmodo.com/deleted-mall-scene-shows-x-men-apocalypse-couldve-been-1786500550

There was fun to be had in this film, aside from Quicksilver we didn't get any.

pixelburp

While arguably it didn't add anything to the actual plot, that's a neat little scene that would have added tonnes of character, charm and pretty useful world-building into the film. The apathy / acceptance of the 80s teens towards Nightcrawler was a nice touch. A real shame it wasn't in the final cut because the theatrical version was utterly weighed down by an excess of PLOT.

constitutionus

that was actually fairly cracking.



and i agree, the film needed a bonding scene like that badly. i'd a rather that stayed in than some of the magneto stuff.

My personal favourite part was when Nightcrawler spun around on his tail.

isntlee

Let the franchise die, 20th Century Fox!