X-men Apocalypse

I’ve just got back from the cinema to watch X-men Apocalypse.

Now, I’ve enjoyed all of the X-men movies bar X-men 3, which was awful, and Wolverine: Origins, which is a crime against film goers that Deadpool managed to make me forget about.

I loved X-men First Class, and really enjoyed the sequel Days of Future Past. Unfortunately, Apocalypse doesn’t live up to either of them.

I’ll go through what I liked first, and then say what I didn’t. There might be a few spoilers, but I’ll keep them light, if you just want to read my thoughts go to the end.

What  I Liked:

1. The cast is brilliant. Everyone is very good in their role. Special mentions go to Sophie Turner as Jean Grey and Evan Peters as Quicksilver, but everyone was good.

2. It looks very good. Seriously, some of it is incredible to watch.

3. Quicksilver’s action parts are incredible.

4. The end battle is really quite cool.

5. Pheonix.

6. Wolverine. In fact his whole bit probably steals the film. Again.

 

What I Didn’t Like:

1. The story jumped around all over the place.

2. It had a massive cast and didn’t build up people it wanted you to care about: Storm, Psylock, Angel, and several others were given cursory background information and then cast into the melee to sink or swim.

3. Apocalypse’s power is basically; whatever the plot needs him to do. I know he’s been absorbing powers for ages, but every time the plot needs him to do something, he suddenly has a power that can do it.

4. Apocalypse is boring. Like, really, really boring.

5. It’s another Magneto vs Xavier with Mystique flittering between them film. This was getting old in the last film, here it’s just tired and dull.

 

 

My Thoughts.

I didn’t hate the film. In fact I found it quite enjoyable, but it tried to do too much with too many characters, and didn’t really manage it. It’s worth a watch, but it made me think, “I wonder what Marvel would do with all of these characters.”

Maybe they should have just done an Age of Apocalypse film, but this feels like it’s the middle part of something larger. Still, I’m glad I saw it, and the 2 and a bit hours flew by. I just wish they’d done so much less to achieve so much more.