X-Men: Apocalypse
Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Oscar Isaac
Directed by Bryan Singer
Picking up where 2014’s Days of Future Past left off, the ninth installment (including this year’s Deadpool) in the successful X-Men film series boasts the usual eye-popping action and dramatic heft but also exposes several cracks in the otherwise polished franchise. The setting this time around is the ‘80s as the world’s first mutant supervillain En Sabah Nur (Isaac), commonly referred to as Apocalypse, is miraculously revived in Egypt and quickly gets up to speed on current events.
Meanwhile, Magneto (Michael Fassbender) is still brooding while trying to raise a family in Poland and the good guys are still hanging with Professor X (James McAvoy). Soon enough, all hell breaks loose as Apocalypse recruits Magneto and several other mutants to destroy the planet… or something. It’s actually a bit unclear what the villain’s motivations are and that is just one of the problems with the story.
The supremely talented Isaac is wasted in the generic role while the film’s familiar plot is stale and, despite the threat of absolute destruction, feels oddly inconsequential.
It also becomes frustrating watching Magneto waver between good and evil once again. Even Jennifer Lawrence seems bored in her role as the shapeshifting Mystique. X-Men: Apocalypse certainly looks great and has no shortage of intriguing character interplay. Once again, a scene-stealing Quicksilver (Evan Peters) is given a classic sequence set to an iconic song. Yet, it all doesn’t seem like enough as the movie’s scattershot storytelling and tiresome tropes put the franchise in need of some innovation.
