THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
After seeing Wolverine change the past to erase a dark future in Days of Future Past, fans were curious to see the new timeline created besides an assassination being prevented.
PLOT
X-Men: Apocalypse takes place in 1983, ten years after Erik Lensherr attacked the White House. He is now on the run, quietly living in Poland with a wife and daughter. Raven Darkhölme/Mystique has been continuing to fight for mutant rights, rescuing other mutants. At this point of the story, she rescues the teleporter Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler. Teenager Scott Summers gains his abilities of summoning optic beams from his eyes, leading his brother Alex aka Havok (Lucas Till) to take him to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, where he'll be trained & raised by Professor Charles Xavier and Doctor Hank McCoy. When he gets sunglasses that block his abilities, he befriends with another that is telepathic & telekinetic, named Jean Grey. In Cairo, Egypt, CIA agent Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne) discovers an underground chamber, where a group of followers awaken an ancient mutant named, En Sabah Nur. Originally in 3600 BCE, he was betrayed by the citizens of Egypt, entombed alive shortly after having his consciousness transferred to a younger body. When he wakes up in the film's present, he causes an explosion so strong that it summons an earthquake that affects the whole world. When it affects Poland, Erik is caught using his powers when saving someone's life. Because of this, he is apprehended by local police, for his crimes as Magneto. His daughter Nina, who fears losing her father, uses her abilities of talking to animals, summoning birds to attack the police. Since one brought a bow and arrow incase Erik came unwillingly, he accidentally takes a shot that kills both Nina and her mother. Heartbroken and enraged, Erik kills every officer. When Raven is told of this, she and Kurt go to Charles' school to find their friend. Charles tries to discover the earthquake's origin and with Cerebro, he finds Moira. He hasn't made contact with her since the 60s since he originally wiped her memory to prevent her superiors to interview her effectively. When visiting her for the first time since, they discover the origin of Nur due to the fact that she had researching of the legend prior. They learn how wherever he ruled, it would end in an apocalyptic manner. When returning to the school, she is told by Raven of what happened to Erik. They use Cerebro to find him but he seems to go back to his ways as Magneto. This is the case because he has encountered Nur and became his final horsemen of four, after having his powers amplified. The other three were: The first was Ororo Munroe/Storm the weather manipulator, whose hair turned white when she got amplified. The second was Psylocke, who can summon psionic energy as a weapon. The third was Warren Worthington III/Angel, who has giant wings but since they were damaged due to a fight with Nightcrawler, Nur replaced his organic wings with metallic ones, becoming Archangel. Nur's new goal is to cleanse the world in order to save it, due to believing that it lost its way in his absence. When he sense Charles, he hacks Cerebro to force world leaders to release every nuclear arsenal to prevent interference of his plan. He and his horsemen then go to the school and abduct Charles after Havok destroys Cerebro. Havok attempts to save Charles by summoning another optic blast, but the group of antagonists evade the blast as they quickly leave, hitting the jet. This accidentally causes an explosion that destroys the mansion. Thankfully, everyone is saved by speedster Peter Maximoff, who was looking for his biological father Erik. Scott, Kurt, Jean and Jubilee (who can summon pyrotechnic energy blasts), who were at the mall the whole time, return home just as the explosion occurred. It is discovered that Alex didn’t survive as he was closest to the blast. Jubilee and everyone else are stunned by Colonel William Stryker (Josh Helman), who chooses to take Moira, Peter, Beast and Mystique with him to Alkali Lake. Jean, Scott and Kurt were distant from the stun, giving them the chance to sneak into Stryker’s helicopter, hoping to save the adults. When the adults wake up at Stryker’s hidden base, he reveals that they are held accountable for Xavier’s actions with the nukes, unaware of what really happened to him. Xavier himself is forced by Nur to send a message around the world that the world will reach an end, while secreting messaging Jean to find him in Cairo. The teenagers are made by guards but avoid being taken in by releasing Weapon X himself, the Wolverine, who slaughters everyone in sight. Before he leaves, Jean chooses to help restore a few of his memories, whichever she could find. After this, the teenagers free the adults and explain they know where Charles is. They take an aircraft and matching flight suits as they leave. Upon arrival to Cairo, they plan to save the professor before Nur can transfer his consciousness to his body, in order to control everyone around the world. Mystique tries to talk to sense into Erik, who is controlling Earth’s magnetic poles which causes destruction around the planet. Although Peter went with her, he chooses not to tell his father that he is his son. The new X-Men fight the other horsemen as Kurt rescues Charles, cancelling the transfer. When everyone boards the aircraft, Psylocke and Archangel attack it but Kurt teleports everyone away. Psylocke is able to jump to safety as the place crashes, but Archangel fails to do so which causes his demise. When Nur wakes up, he begins looking for Charles. Peter tries to beat him on his own, but the main antagonist gets the upper hand as he breaks his right leg. Mystique tries to kill him with Psycloke’s sword, he heals and begins strangling her in order to get Charles to come out. Ororo is disturbed seeing this because she idolizes her. Magneto turns on him, realizing he acted on the wrong side. As he and Scott fight Nur physically, the latter is fighting Charles mentally via consciousness. The telepath is quickly overpowered, but is thankfully asides by Jean as she defeats inside with telepathy, but incinerates his body with new cosmic abilities. This was only able to work as Magneto, Scott and Ororo were able to pin him down with their respected abilities. After saving the world, Charles restores Moira’s memories of her, apologizing that he did so in the first place. When word gets out that mutants saved the world, it seemed that their race has finally received a positive image. When the school is rebuilt, the new X-Men started getting trained but the film ends with Erik telling Charles that they’ll still be friends, despite turning down the offer to be an official member of the team.
THOUGHTS
The best way to talk about this movie is by discussing between Pros and Cons. PROS: Bryan Singer’s final entry to the X-Men franchise goes in a high note in some sorts, because this movie finds a way to be entertaining. I was relieved that they fixed a certain continuity error, that is the age gap of Jean and Scott. Scott originally got his powers in the original 70s timeline as a teen, whereas Jean got them in the 80s as a child. The difference here is that they are both teens when they meet, rather than having an age gap from before. I dig easter eggs and this film had the most clever by playing Metallica's 'Four Horsemen', as Apocalypse is recruiting Angel to be a said horseman. The real reason I have a soft spot for this film because it gave some kind of closure. Even in this film, I like John Ottman's score for sounding as epic as possible. The relationship between Charles and Erik has been the true heart of the franchise since it started in 2000. They had ideal beliefs but different motives, yet they still respected each other. Charles had a strong friendship with him because he was the first to truly the good he had deep down. This is the film where Erik finally lets go of the hate and pain, despite that it always hit him in the face. Seeing them finally on good terms is the biggest relief I could ever have. James McAvoy is still great with the role of Xavier because it feels like he is at his most compassionate. Seeing him find the best in others and seek equality for mutants peacefully is heartwarming because you see that spirit is at his most positive based on prior experience with Wolverine. Michael Fassbender gives another great portrayal of Magneto because he shows the character trying to live peacefully, before hate consumes him again. While we wait for him to redeem himself, it honestly felt satisfying to see him destroy Auschwitz because if you had the chance to confront your trauma, it's hard to believe you wouldn't go for it. Jennifer Lawrence gives an interesting portrayal of Mystique. She chooses to hide again not out of fear of the criticism, but to avoid the responsibility of leadership, as many mutants like Jean and Storm idolized her for being fearless in DC. Seeing her lead the X-Men shows that anyone can be a leader, as long as you believe in yourself. I enjoyed Nicholas Hoult in his given time with the role of Beast. This film is arguably where he fully accepts himself, whereas he doesn't worry about his sedative when forgetting it and embraces that mutants can be protectors, not just equal people, hence the return of the X-Men. Evan Peters impressed me yet again playing Quicksilver. While he still expressed him to be over confident, he still had maturity deep down as he was willing to confront his biological father. He chose not to tell Magneto because it didn't feel like the timing was right. I do hope that at some point, he did find the right time. The best use of visuals in this movie will always be the entire slow motion sequence of how he he saves the entire school before the explosion. I knew I had to be open minded with younger actors to play the new incarnations of the X-Men and while they're not better than the predecessors, they still successfully held their own. I wasn't sure if anyone apart from James Marsden would ever play Cyclops, but Tye Sheridan became a good choice in the long run. I feel this way because he expresses the young hero as a troubled person, as just gaining his abilities scares him and is unsure to fit in. So, there is joy how quick he fits in with others at the mansion. Even though he wasn't a leader, he still showed leadership of his own when suggesting to save the others at Alkali Lake, while also being part of defeating Apocalypse. I enjoyed Sophie Turner because she does good in displaying Jean as a well spoken person, but is still afraid of her powers as she is unaware of how powerful she is. I'm still salty on how Phoenix scenario played out afterwards, but it look good at first glance. It felt good seeing Nightcrawler again and I thought Kodi-Smit McPhee was an interesting choice because he was superb on portraying him as the poetic of the group as his religion made him act wisely. It was interesting seeing him as a teenager whereas like other characters, we first saw him as an adult. I also thought that was Alexandra Shipp was another interesting choice for the role of Storm. The character is normally depicted as one who is clear with her choices because she had the right guidance but here, we see her misguided for the first time. Her new past shows her to be the most troubled as she pick-pocketed to survive. It was a sigh of relief how she saw that she was on the wrong side once Mystique gets involved. Seeing her choosing to stay at the mansion shows that sometimes, it is yourself that can give you the right guidance because it is through the choices you make where you decide what kind of person you want to be. I also felt that seeing these arcs come together reminded me to always be a good leader to those around you or you'll never be better than those who are against you. This allegory truly defines the aspect of a villain I never thought we'd get to see. I feel like I was the only one that actually enjoyed Oscar Isaac's efforts as Apocalypse. The makeup was an odd choice, but I prefer this over a possible CGI mess. I think he pulled off making this character as detached and menacing as possible. I don't always talk about Stan Lee's cameos because they're usually a given, but this time, it felt different because I thought it was cute for him to share the screen with his real life wife Joan as they see the nukes in the sky. I honestly enjoyed Hugh Jackman's Wolverine cameo because it was again badass seeing him in berserker mode. This appearance felt different because not only did the headgear resemble the infamous 'Weapon X' design from the titular comic, but it arguably looked like him at his most violent until Logan came out. I thought that the after credits of seeing Essex Corporation taking the blood sample of Weapon X is smarter than one would think. It works because this is what explains how Wolverine's blood was used to make his cloned daughter Laura in Logan. Sure you can complain that we never got to see Essex himself, Mr. Sinister, because the franchise was abruptly cancelled by the end of the 2010s. I was upset of that too, but I blame Walt Disney for buying the 20th Century (Fox) Studios too early. CONS: While there were stuff that worked, there were many things that didn’t. You can say there’s relief that there were older continuity errors that got erased, but now there’s new ones. You can make an excuse on how the mutants aren’t aging a day, but how has Moira MacTaggert not gotten a single wrinkle on her? You want to find realism, there should be nothing wrong implying your character is getting old. The weirdest thing is how Charles finds Moira in Egypt, but didn't sense Apocalypse in the sam vicinity? Sure it wouldn't be impossible to find mutants in Egypt, but I feel certain he could've gotten a glimpse of him at the very least. I thought it was cool seeing Jean use the Phoenix force on Apocalypse, but it is so pointless to see because this scenario gets retconned when we see the followup, Dark Phoenix. Also, why was Angel stuck in a fight club? He was part of a privileged family in the original timeline, and now he’s not? That’s doesn’t sound right. Speaking of Angel, actor Ben Hardy brought no depth to the character. It was as if he was told to act only hateful towards everyone around him, but this attitude doesn’t feel earned as we don’t know what made him distance himself from socializing. Yes he seems to embrace his abilities, but there is nothing else to it. Seeing him in the said place felt like they were copying Wolverine's introduction, which I find lazy. Even his death was lazy too. You have wings and you can't fly out of a crashing aircraft? I'm on the side of Apocalypse when calling this character useless. Olivia Munn is a cool person but it hurts to say that I wasn't impressed with her portrayal of Psylocke. Like Hardy's Angel, she doesn't have much of a personality, nor does she have any motive. She barely speaks in this movie, and I just stopped caring about her when she left. This is where the character introductions don't exactly work like they did in First Class. It is challenging to just introduce a new character and not give us an origin. Another wasted actress was Lana Condor. I respect the career she has had after this film, but all her scenes as Jubilee was wasted and I couldn’t enjoy her presence at all. Had they not taken out the extended scenes of her at the mall with the other teenagers, than maybe I’d appreciate what was shown. The one scene of all visuals that bothered me the most was where we get a view of the mountain that Charles and the antagonists are on top of before the new pyramid was made; I mean that looked way too fake for me. It was so weird seeing Beast ask Moira about Apocalypse, when we saw him abduct Charles. That made no sense because at that moment, he clearly saw that the guy was more powerful. I love the costumes that the new X-Men get at the end because are obviously spot on inspired from the comics and 90s animated series, but I am livid that they aren't wearing this in the follow up and wear matching uniforms again. I felt like I was getting flipped off by nostalgia. It does make sense for them to fight sentinels in the danger room to test their abilities, but when the hell did Charles get them? I do not believe he would keep around machines that can overpower mutants. In short, X-Men: Apocalypse came out overhyped, but still finds a way to be an entertaining entry to the respected series. If you're still a fan of this superhero franchise, I hope you finds some kind of satisfaction with this one.
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