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User Reviews for: X-Men: Apocalypse

Lee Brown Barrow
7/10  8 years ago
The problem with big tentpole pictures like this one is expectation. People already build up a picture of the film in their heads thanks to the trailers and all the hype surrounding the film. I, myself, was hyped up for this film following the exciting trailer.

The critics have not been happy and many people have dusted down their computers to criticise the film. Again, the problem I am sure was expectation. This film is good, sometimes excellent. Oscar Isaac is fearsome as Apocalypse, though I felt the character could have been more apocalyptic. The action is great and once again Quicksilver steals the show, in terms of story and lightness of tone.

I was disappointed so see one character die - why do they always have to die? - will there be a Days of Future Past 2 to bring him/her back? - no, but can't we just have a little but of fun instead of creating dramatic tension by killing somebody?

The film is flabby at times, a little off with the pacing during the first hour, and needs a serious injection of adrenalin at times. However, the film does kick up a gear and there are many crowd pleasing moments before the films end. There are a lot of characters in the film but that isn't a bad thing. Most are used well, others are merely cameos - hello, the Blob!

So what if this isn't even the best X-Men movie, although arguably it comes a close second or third. Its not the end of the world if it isn't the best superhero movie this year. Civil War comes out on top and Batman V Superman wasn't as awful as people made out. The film is very good and on reflection will be seen as one of the best movies of the summer, I am sure. I hold no hope for the Turtles film, am not sure on the new Ghostbusters, and Warcraft and Assassins Creed are an unknown property to film (though they both look ace - I'm just trying not to get carried away with hype).

Enjoy the film for the spectacle it is and remember a time not too long ago when superhero films were looked down upon by Hollywood execs.

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Reply by StreamFan68
8 years ago
I don't know..I am not a super fan of these kind of movies so my expectations were sort of balanced..and I truly found this project to be totally without a doubt a huge failure.. I really didnt find anything about this film that I can say I truly liked... Perhaps the next one will be better...or maybe there spreading themselves too thin I do not know.. But I considered this go around a huge failure..
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farneyboy
CONTAINS SPOILERS6/10  8 years ago
I left this movie with strangely mixed feelings and every time I tried to define exactly how I would describe the film to someone else, I found myself hedging every positive statement with a "but..."

I liked it. BUT... it didn't leave me with the same excited feelings that the other X-Men films did when I left the theater (Yes, that includes the much-maligned X-Men The Last Stand)

I thought the action was cool, even amazing in some parts. BUT... it takes a LONG time to get to the action.

I liked the direction they took the story. BUT... it's a lot of story (see the action item above). As a comics fan I didn't mind because I like the characters already and enjoy spending time in their world, BUT... I don't know if the average fan will enjoy the long stretches of exposition. It's a story that I think fits the continuity they've created in the films... however it is not the "Age of Apocalypse" storyline or really any particular one I recognized from the comic series.

Having said all that... it's not a bad movie. It's certainly not the worst entry in the X-Men film canon. I think it's box office take may suffer by being the third big superhero movie released in 2.5 months after "Batman v Superman" & "Captain America: Civil War". I love superhero movies and I just think I might have enjoyed this one more if it were released in February or August.

---------------------
SOME SPOILERS BELOW


Other random thoughts:

Weird to think that it's Poe Dameron underneath all the Apocalypse makeup. You'd NEVER know.

I was excited to see Psylocke join the movie-verse but I'm confused with how they used her. Who was she? For what she ACTUALLY does in the film (SPOILER--pretty much nothing other than a bit of fighting), why have her at all?

I kind of wish the arrow that (SPOILER) Erik's (SPOILER) would have been fired intentionally. I think it would have made his choices after that a little more relatable (at least he didn't have to watch his family burned alive in a house like he did in the comics, I guess)

Apocalypse didn't do much. He could crumble people & buildings with no thought but he needed all the others to do stuff? For as powerful as he was, he didn't seem to try very hard.

They keep upping the destruction levels in these movies... the Golden Gate Bridge (X3), the football stadium (DoFP), what felt like half the world (Apocalypse). Where can you go after this, blowing up the entire planet Earth?

A few fun easter eggs for fans: seeing Jubilee, Caliban, Blob, a funny joke about X3, a couple of nods to X2, & Mystique's outfit at the end of the movie.

--SPOILER--It was cool to see Wolverine in his "Weapon X" phase. Wish they hadn't given that away in the trailer though. Would have been more fun as a complete surprise. His whole scene is quite bloody, but it does give a possible explanation for Wolvie's attraction/connection to Jean.
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benoliver999
CONTAINS SPOILERS4/10  7 years ago
In ancient Egypt, a mutant believed to be a god is betrayed and entombed by his worshippers. In 1983, he awakens and seeks revenge on the world, looking to re-instate his position of power over mankind. The young students at Charles Xavier’s school must band together to stop him. The Egyptian mutant that is, not Charles.

Thanks to infinite amounts of time travel gimmicks, reboots and re-castings we’ve reached a point where the X-Men franchise will never die. This particular instalment is about as run-of-the-mill as you can get. You’ve seen it all before - a bad guy wants to take over the world. The mutants want to stop him. The government gets in the way.

In spite of its lack of any entertainment value or substance, the film answers a few questions about the franchise as a whole. We see a young Storm, a young Jean Grey and a young laser-eyes guy. We also get the back story on how Charles Xavier went bald, and why Magneto has anger management issues for the rest of his life.

Unless you really want the back story on characters from films that came out 15 years ago (or, spoiler alert, you’ve a Wolverine completionist) you could probably skip this one, despite James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender’s always solid performances.

Perhaps one day someone will compile a film of just the scenes with the super-speed guy. Watching him almost stop time and move shit around is always fun.

https://benoliver999.com/film/2017/08/06/xmenapocalypse/
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AndrewBloom
8/10  7 years ago
[8.2/10] I am, like most folks, a fan of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy, and the way he uses the genre trappings in a gritty, semi-real setting to give Batman and his allies and enemies character stakes and social commentary. I’m also a big fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films, which employ some strong world-building and character-focused arcs for each protagonist that blend into great interpersonal dynamics whenever the disparate characters cross paths.
But I also really enjoy movies like X-Men: Apocalypse, which don’t follow either tack but still manage to be exciting, fun, and unique.

XM:A is not at all realistic. It is grandiose and full of wild, sometimes poorly-defined powers that get by on how cool they are, in isolation and in conjunction with one another. It’s a colorful movie, filled with diverse characters in crazy guises who use any number of crazy energy blasts or creative powers on one another. It is bonkers and comic book-y in that regard, and it’s a ton of fun.

But it’s also not really interested in world-building or character dynamics in the same way either. There’s a little of that, mostly in the form of echoes from the prior films, but the film is more interested in introducing new characters (well, kind of old characters, kind of new characters) throwing them into crazy situations, and letting the sparks fly.

That’s both a bug and a feature. To some degree, X-Men: Apocalypse is overstuffed. There’s a team of five bad guys, a team of five returning good guys, a trio of new good guys, and quick scenes and cameos from tons of other players in the franchise’s past, present, and future. That can leave the film feeling a little disjointed, with jumps around the world, visions of the distant beginning of the villain’s rise and portentous dreams of a terrible end. There is a lot going on here, and sometimes it’s difficult to keep it all straight.

Still, it also means that X-Men: Apocalypse feels nimble even as it gets a bit unwieldy in places. If you’re not enjoying one particular subplot or character, you can rest assured that the movie will zip on over to another that might be more your speed. In that sense, the movie keeps up its momentum, introducing characters on the fly, having them jump into the fray pretty immediately, and then eventually bringing everyone together, either as compatriots or antagonists, for the big finale. In that way, X-Men: Apocalypse feels like an entire season of a television show condensed down to one 2 ½ hour movie, with all the good that comes with that, but also the sense of story whiplash and packed-in feeling that comes with it too.

That’s pretty much the story of XM:A from a critical standpoint, where it does a number of interesting things and engages in solid storytelling, but tries to do so much of it that the results can seem glancing at times. Almost every character in the film has an arc, from the most prominent (Magneto finding the good in himself after tragedy…again, Mystique realizing she is an inspirational symbol to young mutants everywhere) to the brief (Jean and Cyclops being worried about their powers as a curse but learning to use them when the time is right) to the baffling (Professor X dealing with his mindwipe crush on Moira, Quicksilver waffling on whether to tell Magneto he’s his father).

None of these arcs are especially deep. The breakneck pace of the film sort of requires that everyone’s development be told in thumbnail sketches in character quirks. But everyone has something to do, a role to play in the narrative and some way to grow and change, that makes their presence seem like it has a purpose. While some of the mutants at the edge of the narrative (mostly the bad guy coterie) feel underserved, they can get by on cool looks and popcorn combat.

The best of these arcs are Magneto’s and Mystiques. While much of the plotting of XM:A feels slight, you just can’t put Michael Fassbender on screen and not feel the well of pain and anger and trauma he breathes into Magneto. It’s well-trodden ground for the character, but Fassbender nails it an elevates the material from the word go. By the same token, the notion of Mystique feeling like her stunt from the last film didn’t make humans like mutants anymore, just making them hide their prejudice, only to realize that regardless of the humans, it inspired a generation of young mutants, is pretty standard stuff. But it’s also a tidy little story, and Jennifer Lawrence sells the epiphany well.

Apocalypse himself gets something of the short shrift. Oscar Isaac is nigh-unrecognizable under all that prosthesis, and his prodigious talents are mostly used in service of functional but unremarkable big bad dialogue. Still, the production team does a good amount of the work in making him an imposing villain. The sound design on his voice, the disintegration powers he uses in creative ways, and even the somewhat ominous, regal bearing the demigod carries with him make Apocalypse a compelling enough, if not particularly well-rounded villain.

The production side of the film brings a great deal to the table all around. Again, this is a colorful film, with the final scene in particular a beautiful if sometimes dizzying cacophony of blasts and quakes and explosions. The film also gets oddly but impressively arty at times, with shots of a good guy and bad guy walking toward one another in the real world, bathed in flames and energy beams and other magical detritus, at the same time they’re confronting one another in another realm at the same time. There’s also another brilliant Quicksilver sequence, which uses the “Fry on 1,000 cups of coffee” vibe from *Futurama* to hilarious and inventive effect, with a kickin’ soundtrack to boot.

While X-Men Apocalypse is never going to be a critical favorite like Nolan’s bat-films, or have the sort of synergistic thrills and deep character treatment of the MCU movies, it works as a feature-length thrill ride. Some of it feels disposable and thin, but it makes up for that by being a full-on, committed bit of comic book grandiosity and weirdness. Sometimes its reach exceeds its grasp, but the film offers another flavor of superhero adventures on the silver screen, and I, for one, heartily enjoyed it.
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Austin Singleton
/10  6 years ago
Not really a step forward in the X-Men franchise. Read my full review here.

http://www.hweird1reviews.com/allreviews/x-men-apocalypse-review
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