'X-Men: Apocalypse' is fun to laugh at, but still a good time
X-Men: Apocalypse is basically just a goofier Captain America: Civil War.
If that doesn't read like a ringing endorsement then you're taking this stuff too seriously. We're talking about the ninth movie in an X-Men series timeline where, for every Deadpool and X-Men: First Class, there's an X-Men: The Last Stand or (science save us) X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
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Point being, this is a series that has reveled in campy nonsense more than once -- and more than once, it's been terrible at that. One guy shoots red laser beams out of his eyes, because evolution. Another looks like a demon-elf and teleports around in puffs of smoke. The mutant that runs really, really fast (that's his power) wears a Rush T-shirt. Obviously.
The fact that the X-Men timeline hasn't been rebooted yet -- despite its occasional box office trainwrecks and similar shake-ups in competing franchises -- is nothing short of a miracle.
So Apocalypse bravely tries to pull all of the various threads and timelines together, doing for the Fox mutant-verse what Civil War just did for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And hey, great news: It mostly succeeds.
The story picks up after 2015's X-Men: Days of Future Past, which teased the coming of Apocalypse, Earth's first mutant. Born in ancient Egypt and worshiped by other mutants of the time, the big, blue baddie was thought to be lost after human traitors disrupted an important ceremony, leaving Apocalypse buried beneath tons of collapsed pyramid.
Millennia later, Apocalypse resurfaces, then sets out once again to take over the world -- and re-shape it so only the strong may survive. To do so, he enlists his "four horsemen" of mutants: Magneto, Archangel, Storm and Psylocke. As usual, only the X-Men can stop them.
X-Men: Apocalypse is just a goofier Civil War.
For fans of the series, every frame is a reminder of the larger universe that Fox has built. Where did Storm's white hair come from? How did Wolverine end up wandering the Canadian wilderness? Why did Professor X lose James McAvoy's flowing locks? All of these questions are answered in Apocalypse.
While the story doubles down on fan service, that often comes at the expense of coherent storytelling. From Jean Grey's future Phoenix transformation to the entirety of Magneto's origin as an angry, human-hating mutant -- you'll never believe what a single arrow can do -- sense rarely prevails.
In some cases, familiarity with the series helps. If you saw The Last Stand, you understand why Jean dreams of apocalyptic fire, and why the reason for those dreams needs to remain mysterious in Apocalypse. But how many people in the audience really remember the decade-old movie that completes this connection?
It's not like there's any time in this movie to explore the past, either. Even with its two-and-half-hour running time, the story focuses more on introducing characters than developing them.
There's excitement in seeing characters like Angel, Psylocke and Apocalypse on the big screen for the first time, but they're all one-dimensional cut-outs. And they all still fare better than some others -- like Jubilee, who is relegated to bit player in a couple of early, throwaway scenes.
Even the handful of characters we spend significant time with -- Cyclops, Jean Grey, Quicksilver and (to a lesser extent) Storm -- are undercooked. The movie spends too much time dwelling in overwrought melodrama and not enough building the emotional connections to justify it.
Why, in this age of long-form storytelling at the movies, didn't Fox didn't deliver its new X-Men as a two-parter? Even putting aside the big story and unwieldy ensemble, we're talking about Apocalypse here. The worst of the comic book X-Men foes.
It's unfair to expect the movie to simply follow the story beats of the comics. Still, what kind of fan service is it to turn this horrible menace -- who fundamentally changed the books for two years -- into a standard one-and-done movie villain? It's not a spoiler to say there's no cliffhanger ending on this one.
You might be tempted to point your complaints at director Bryan Singer and writer Simon Kinberg, but this is really more of a franchise problem. Either the movies leading up to Apocalypse didn't create strong enough connections, or they're simply old enough that said connections resonate poorly.
Civil War worked so well because the Marvel Cinematic Universe, over the course of many movies, managed the opposite. Walk into that franchise's new installment without having seen anything that preceded it and you'd be lost; that's just an accepted fact.
For all there is to point and laugh at, the movie isn't a waste of time.
The X-Men movie series doesn't have the same throughline or regular output. In the time since Singer's year 2000 franchise kickoff, there have been spin-offs, sequels and prequels, plus a hiatus. There's not a strong sense of continuity from movie to movie.
It's unsurprising, then, that bringing it all together in X-Men: Apocalypse resulted in such a mess. Can the studio even keep track of the running storyline at this point? We in the audience sure can't.
That's a whole lot of less-than-positive criticism, but make no mistake: This really is a fun movie. It's filled with big action moments and (often purely visual) fan service. For all there is to point and laugh at, it's not a waste of time.
You definitely get more out of the movie if you're completely current with the series. But either way, X-Men: Apocalypse is a great early summer blockbuster to chase away the post-Civil War blues.
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Topics Film
Adam Rosenberg is a Senior Games Reporter for Mashable, where he plays all the games. Every single one. From AAA blockbusters to indie darlings to mobile favorites and browser-based oddities, he consumes as much as he can, whenever he can.Adam brings more than a decade of experience working in the space to the Mashable Games team. He previously headed up all games coverage at Digital Trends, and prior to that was a long-time, full-time freelancer, writing for a diverse lineup of outlets that includes Rolling Stone, MTV, G4, Joystiq, IGN, Official Xbox Magazine, EGM, 1UP, UGO and others.Born and raised in the beautiful suburbs of New York, Adam has spent his life in and around the city. He's a New York University graduate with a double major in Journalism and Cinema Studios. He's also a certified audio engineer. Currently, Adam resides in Crown Heights with his dog and his partner's two cats. He's a lover of fine food, adorable animals, video games, all things geeky and shiny gadgets.
