6th Times The Charm?

As always this review will contain spoiler.

2016 had all the makings of being the year of the superhero as Marvel, Fox and DC got set to deliver 6 movies in that genre compared to the 3 that we got in 2015 (and yes i know there were others but for the purposes of this review I am only counting films by the aforementioned studios and only those that are live action).

Fox got the ball rolling with Deadpool which came out of nowhere and kicked us all in the Chimichangas with its sheer awesomeness. Second out of the gate was DCs Batman vs Superman which they hoped would kickstart their DCEU plans but fell short of expectations taking less than $900, 000, 000 at the box-office, the fact that a figure like that is a disappointment is pretty crazy when you think about it.

Not to be outdone Marvel unleashed their own Superhero smackdown in the form of Captain America Civil War which was every inch the film that Batman vs Superman wished it could have been. Now I have already covered all of these films in depth in previous reviews (which you can read on my website) so I wont cover old ground, rather I will move swiftly forward to talk about Foxs second entry into 2016s world of superhero movies X-Men Apocalypse.

It's been two years since Bryan Singer returned to the franchise that he brought to prominence, a franchise he kicked into another gear with the immense X-Men Days of Future Past which I still hold up as the greatest comic book movie of all time (although Civil War runs it pretty damn close). So here we are in 2016 and Singer is bringing us his interpretation of the classic X-Men story arc Age of Apocalypse. Though it should of course be noted that the movie version of events will be significantly different from the original source material but then this is something we have come to expect following the likes of Age of Ultron, Batman vs Superman and the aforementioned Days of Future Past.

So to the movie which I will cover in sections rather than in chronological order for the sake of clarity. We begin in Ancient Egypt where a mass gathering is taking place to celebrate the ceremony of transference of the conciousness of En Sabah Nur into a younger, healthier vessel. Nur, for the uninitiated, is the titular Apocalypse who is the worlds first mutant, he is also an individual who has lived for millenia due to the passing of his conciousness into another body everytime he is near death. Not only does this keep him alive but it also allows him to accrue the powers of each mutant into whom he is transferred making him the most powerful mutant who ever lived.

All is not rosy in the garden of Apocalypse though as some human dissenters try to sabotage the ceremony and bury him beneath the pyramid within which the ceremony is taking place. The plan is only partially successful however as they do bury him but not before the transference completes, this leaves him trapped in a state of hibernation of sorts waiting for the day he can rise once again and rule the world.

We then jump into the movies present day which is 1983 or for those of you keeping score ten years after the events of DOFP. At an underground fight club we see Angel is being forced to fight other mutants whilst a baying crowd cry for blood and put bets on the fights outcomes. We join the scene just after Angel has defeated Blob and is getting ready to fight an unwilling Nightcrawler who doesn't really know whats going on. Luckily for him Mystique happens to be in the crowd and she helps the two mutants escape. You see in the last decade she has become somewhat of a folkhero to the mutant community who are still mistreated by mankind despite relations supposedly improving after Mystique saved the president. Nightcrawler leaves with Mystique (who it should be noted spends most of the film in human form so's not to draw attention to herself) whilst Angel heads off to who knows where.

Mystique takes Nightcrawler to a mutant forger who will provide him with fake documents to allow him to leave the country and live his life in peace (as much as he can anyway), whilst here we are also introduced for the first time to Psylocke (comic book fans will love this). Whilst there however Mystique is informed that Magneto has resurfaced after ten years of hiding away and that there has been an unfortunate incident that has made him reveal himself.

Now speaking of this incident lets head back to Egypt where we find CIA agent Moira McTaggart who is investigating religious cults who believe that Apocalypse will return. Now the observant of you will remember that Moira was last seen at the end of First Class where she was involved in the altercation in Cuba before Professor X wiped her memory to protect her from those who would question her role in those events. Anyhow, Moira inadvertantly brings about the resurrection of Apocalypse which involves him creating an earth tremor that is felt on a global scale. Its this tremor that brings trouble into the life of Magneto who has been living in peace under an assumed name in Poland. Not only has he been keeping his head down but hes gone and got himself married and has a daughter. He also has a job at a refinery and is an upstanding member of the community, until that is the tremor causes an accident at his place of work, an accident that would result in the death of one of his co-workers but for Magnetos timely intervention using his mastery of magnetism.

Realising that the jig is up Magneto attempts to leave town with his family but is stopped by the local police who hold his daughter hostage whilst trying to get Magneto to fess up to his true identity. Long story short this stand off results in one of the officers inadvertantly killing Magnetos daughter and wife with an arrow which obviously does not sit well with the magnetic mutant who promptly kills them all. The whole thing doing nothing but strengthen Magnetos hatred of the human race.

Whilst all of this is going on Scott Summers aka Cyclops suddenly comes into his powers, destroying a bathroom at school in the process. This leads to his older brother Alex aka Havok taking Scott to Xaviers school where he hopes that the Professor can help him learn to control his powers, it is here that we also get introduced to a young Jean Grey and witness the beginnings of her relationship with the younger Summers son. During this period the Professor also revisits Moira to find out what she was upto in Egypt and it is here that he learns about the fabled Apocalypse.

Oh yeah, Apocalypse, what is everyones favourite immortal mutant upto? Well being resurrected into a world he doesn't recognise confuses him a little until he stumbles across a young thief who he saves from her pursuers, this thief is none other than future X-Man Storm. After a bit of a chinwag and some serious television viewing from the ancient one Apocalypse decides that he has to do something about the human race and to achieve his goals he needs to gather together the strongest mutants to play the roles of his four horseman. Storm is horseperson one and Apocalypse encourages her loyalty by giving her a boost in her abilities, unlocking the true potential in her powers. The two of them next head off to the mutant forger we met earlier where Apocalypse does the power boost thing to Psylocke thus making her horseperson number two. Angel gets picked up as horseperson three and finally the gang goes to collect Magneto as the fourth and final part of the puzzle.

Back at the Xavier institute Mystique shows up with Nightcrawler and tells the Professor and Beast that shes heard about Magnetos family woes and wants Xavier to try to connect with his old friend so that they can help him. This turns out to be a bad idea however as after a brief psychic conversation between the longtime friends/adversaries Apocalypse hijacks Cerebro via Xaviers mind and uses it to control the minds of all the people responsible for firing nuclear bombs, firing the Earths entire arsenal into space, Havok has to destroy Cerebro to break Apocalypses hold on his mentor. This whole interaction gives Apocalypse an idea, an idea that requires his abduction of the Professor and so he and his crew teleport themselves to the mansion where they get their hands on Xavier and take their leave though not before Havok tries to stop them but inadvertantly causes an explosion that rips through the entire mansion.

Fear not though X fans as everybodys favourite speedster (aside from the Flash of course) Quicksilver is here to save the day. Now anyone who has seen DOFP will know that the show stealer of that film is Quicksilver and his standout scene in the kitchen during the breakout of Magneto from the Pentagon, this time out they match the awesomeness of that scene and then trump it, giving the character the best moment for the second film running. Now why is he there I hear you ask? Well he has realised that Magneto is his father and so he was heading to the mansion in the hope that the Professor can help him connect with his errant parent. What follows is three minutes of genius as Quicksilver runs through the mansion saving everybody from a fiery death including some goldfish and a dog. Unfortunately the one person he fails to save is Havok who to his brothers dismay perishes in the explosion.

Not that they have time to mourn his loss as Stryker and his cronies show up and knock all of the mutants out, abducting Beast, Mystique, Quicksilver and Moira though unbeknownst to the military men Jean, Cyclops and Nightcrawler all sneak onboard the chopper in an attempt to save their friends.

This takes us the secret bunker that we have come to know and love as the location of the Weapon X programme. Here Stryker tries to get the location of the Professor out of his captives whilst the young stowaways free Wolverine from his cage and watch on in horror as he goes on a feral rampage, killing everybody who happens to cross his path. So Wolverine makes his escape and heads off into the wilderness which of course will lead to the events of the original X trilogy whilst Jean, Cyclops and Nightcrawler save the others who know where Apocalypse has taken the Professor after he psychically converses with Jean who we begin to see may well be the answer to the whole thing.

So off they head to face the forces of Apocalypse though they better get a shake on as Magneto has had his powers increased and he is in the process of ripping the whole planet apart whilst Apocalypse is in the process of transferring his conciousness into Xaviers body. So the fight is on and we cut between the heroes battling the villains whilst Xavier and Apocalypse battle it out within the confines of the Professors mind which lends itself some visuals of Xavier getting his ass handed to him by a giant Apocalypse until Jean enters the psychic fray and turns the tide in the heroes favour.

Back in the real world Magneto is doing the whole destroy the world thing until Apocalypse (who can fight on both plains at the same time) almost kill Mystique which turns Magnetos eye and has him do his best to help out the X-Men in their seemingly futile battle. All looks lost however as Apocalypse is just too damn powerful until that is Xavier convinces Jean to let go and release her full potential which of course leads to her going all Phoenix and destroying Apocalypse once and for all.

The film ends with Magneto and Jean rebuilding the Institute, life going on in the school and Magneto somewhat exonerated due to his actions at the end of the battle despite the number of people he must have killed before he had a change of heart. In post credits action we see some men in black collecting a sample of Wolverines blood and putting it in a case labelled Essex Corps which is a direct reference to Nathaniel Essex aka Mr Sinister.

Now of course I have not covered the entire plot of the movie in the above run down of events but with a film of this nature there are so many twists and turns and the story jumps around so often that this review would have been much longer than it already is. So what did I make of the film?

Well the first thing to say is that it is not as good as DOFP, in fact I would go so far as to say that it is not as good as Civil War but it is a helluva lot better than Batman vs Superman. X-Men Apocalypse has been getting a lot of stick from early reviews who for one reason or another don't seem to have enjoyed the viewing experience. Among complaints I have seen are points such as there is too much destruction, Mystique spends too much time in human form and there are many plot holes big enough to drive a bus through, so allow me to try to address those specific complaints.

Firstly the film is called X-Men Apocalypse and is about a mutant who wants to bring about the end of mankind, the keyword to consider here is APOCALYPSE which I believe speaks for itself. This was never supposed to be a film about what if, it is a film about the end of the world and as such there has to be a certain level of destruction. Is it overdone? Maybe, maybe not, it certainly doesn't feel as bad as the destruction in Man of Steel which was just so out of place with the central character involved. As for Mystique well its been widely reported that Jennifer Lawrence hates putting on the blue makeup and so she may well have had it written into her contract that she spend less time as mutant Mystique in favour of walking around looking like Jennifer Lawrence. I understand that some will take issue with this but in the context of the films plot that Mystique does not want to be the hero that mutants see her as it does make sense that she would hide away from showing her true form.

Now I will admit that there are plot holes in this film and some of them are really quite glaring but do any of them take me out of the film to the point that it detracts from my enjoyment of what I was watching? The answer is no which for me personally is surprising as I am usually the first and most vocal descenter when it comes to such things and yet I found myself enjoying this film to such an extent that I was prepared to give the film a pass. The parts of this film that are weak and don't really make sense are more than counterbalanced by the better parts of the movie such as anytime Quicksilver is onscreen and the emergence of Cyclops as an interesting character (finally)

I will admit that like others I found Apocalypse a rather bland and uninteresting villain who didn't seem to do much and other than Magneto the other horsepeople don't seem to serve much of a purpose but if it leads to those characters having bigger roles in future films then their appearance here serves its purpose.

The one thing I could have done without was the death of Havok as I was getting behind him as a character and he was appearing to become a bigger player in this film but at least they had the balls to actually kill a main player unlike Marvel with Civil War who bottled it completely. Who would I have killed rather than Havok? To be honest I'm not sure, maybe Moira but then that leaves a void in part of Xaviers story so I can see why shes here.

One surprising element of this movie for me was the amount of humorous moments that it delivered. There were certainly more here than there were in DOFP but each of them delivered and brought laughs from the audience in the screening I was sat in. I must also reference the death of Magnetos family which drew audible gasps from the audience which is not something I have heard in a superhero screening before, it truly was a dramatic moment that hits you like a pinch to the gut.

So in closing I'd have to say that X-Men Apocalypse is probably my third favourite superhero movie of the year (behind Civil War and Deadpool) and in the grand scheme of the genres history I would hold it above the likes of Iron Man 3 and of course any film featuring the Fantastic Four. Is it as good as the likes of Guardians of the Galaxy or Captain American Winter Soldier? No but it is far and away better than X-Men the Last Stand which some critics are claiming is actually a better film than Apocalypse. To be honest anyone who is saying that is delusional and may need to go back and watch both films again to realise just how wrong they are.

So I will give X-Men Apocalypse a score of 7.5 out of 10 though this may well rise with a second viewing.