This tongue in cheek exchange between Scott Summers and Jubilation Lee(yes, I know her ACTUAL full name, not just what they call her. Granted as she is a vampire now I may mumble it under my breath minus Blade's gear) as they walk out of Return of the Jedi may prove to be a bridge to far. It's meant as a shot at X-men: The Last stand, but if these box office numbers hold it may also apply to the THIRD in the period X-men movies. From the initial "Not a reboot" of the X-men movies they have been taking a story arc/graphic novel from famous X-men lore using it as the movies title and then warping the Teams, story lines, and driving forces to try and tell more cohesive and compelling X-men stories. In X-men first class, we were introduced to The Hellfire Club, Emma Frost, and Sebastian Shaw. Well technically RE-introduced to Ms. Frost because for WHATEVER reason she as a young girl was in X-men Origins:Wolverine, with her Diamond powers instead of her telepathy, because:to hell with continuity. First Class took place during the 60's and the Cuban Missile crisis, with Charles Xavier, Eric Lenshurr, and Raven Darkholm amassing a team of potential young mutant hopefuls trying to learn how to use their powers, and Stop Sebastion Shaw from ushering in WW3.
In X-men Days of Future Past we are shown a Dystopian future where due to a decision made by Mystique in the past, all mutants are damn near exterminated. This one is the CLOSEST parallel to the comics, and also the best received. As we all know MOST marvel stories are huge crossovers which basically have characters bumping into each other, causes chaos that someone else has to clean up, read about, or at least be inconvenienced by every day or so. The funny thing is, Fox actually owns the rights to Fantastic Four and COULD have done a more faithful adaptation, but the one they did is fine. Yes they send Wolverine Back instead of Kat(no longer Kitty) Pride, and there is no Rachel Summers, but since Wolverine is as old as dirt it's not a bad idea to use him for your period movie as the Time traveler PLUS it gives you a look into who Logan was while he was staying as far away from other mutants.
And now we have Apocalypse
En Sabah Nur is the First mutant, he originally has the power to move sand and anything created from sand(or at least it appears he does as you see him creating the pyramids in the After Credits scene for Days of Future Past), he also apparently has the ability to enhance/strengthen the powers of other mutants. Allowing them to reach their full potential, he choose 4 mutants to be his "horseman" and protect him as he goes about ruling the world, leading humanity into the beauty of civilization. As En Sabah Nur nears death he selects a host body, usually of another mutant that he transfers his powers and consciousness too as well as absorbs the current powers of the host body. After an extra long Slumber Apocalypse awakens in 1980's Egypt, the city of Cairo. After stumbling around and looking at what has happened to the world he used to own he sees a young girl leading a band orphan children throw a bazaar. He watches as she apparently causes a brief dust storm, to distract the proprietors and allow her fellow bandits to grab some items and escape. The young brown skin lady is cornered by a few of the proprietors who with knife drawn are preparing to cut off one of her hands.
En Sabah Nur does not speak English, current Egyptian, Arabic, or English but seeing the young mutant in trouble he deals with her pursuers and is then shown her humble abode. She rushes the children out of the house as in coming into contact with a small TV Apocalypse begins to learn about the rest of the "current state of the world." He is out raged and makes the young Mutant, his Weather Goddess his first new horseman. We then jump to Mystique who has found an underground Mutant cage match where a winged Mutant is taking on all commers in what appears to be an electrified cage. After dispatching a large rotund being, a small trunk is rolled in. The announcer goes into his spiels and says that the ONLY thing that could POSSIBLY fight an angel, is the devil to which a blue tailed mutant is flung out of the trunk into the middle of the cage. It appears that both the box and the cage have the same type of dampening field which keeps a mutants powers from activating fully.
The young and somewhat scared blue mutant attempts to run first, but is warned by the avian that if they do not fight they will be shot. To which the young demon desides to do his best to throw the angel around in a fight for his survival. During the tussle Mystique is able to damage the cage and the young mutants escape. Afterwards Mystique helps hide him and they find a way out of the country. Apocalypse and Storm show up into a mutant forgers office and recruit his body guard. They Also pick up the Angel and go in search of one last horseman.
We then jump to Magneto, living somewhere in Poland. After trying to live his life normally he is in a spot of trouble. Eric Lenshur has once again been pushed to the edge by loss, and in this dark moment is recruited by En Sabah Nur. Now while En Sabah Nur has enhanced the powers of all the other mutants he has encountered he just takes Magneto back to Auschwitz, drawing on the pain Homo Sapiens have caused him and asking if he wants to help in wiping them off the face of HIS planet.
Finally we go to America, and see a young Scott Summers in his high school class, Scott is about to have a VERY bad day. His mutant powers are about to manifest and at the not exactly worst possible time, but a pretty embarrassing one and once it happens he runs home and hides in his room. I don't think I'm giving any spoilers saying that Scott's powers explode from his eyes, it's in the trailer. So while hiding upstairs in his room, mom and dad speak to his older brother Alex and ask him to talk to him. Alex takes Scott on a ride to "Xavier's school for the Gifted." Here we see young mutants running around the familiar and now much better upkept mansion learning various subjects. Charles is teaching a class when he notices Alex's return as well as his young brother. Alex hopes that Charles can help Scott to control and embrace his powers, Cyclops is at Xavier's school. This ladies and gentleman is the start of a BEAUTIFUL Friendship.
I think one of the things that the first 3 X-men movies dropped the ball on was the FAMILY dynamic of the X-men comics and TV shows, yes there were relationships, trysts, hook ups, triangles, and break ups but there were also brother and sister bonds. Pranks played on each other, down time, rivalries,and deep seeded bonds. One of the most important bonds is probably the craziest, the bond between Charles and Eric, while many times it can be written as enemies they are really just two sides of the same coin. Each want mutants to have a place in this world, one is just more patient and willing to work towards the goal how ever slowly it may take. The other is ready to force mutants place in the world right now, not wait for homo sapiens to be ready but for mutant kind to take it's place at the head of the table, they are the next step in evolution and should act that way. Apocalypse is of course the Original Darwinist, survival of the fittest not the weakest or those compensating.
Now I know people may have heard a few criticisms about this movie, they wove a pretty compelling story, and while I won't say the end fight was that dry I can understand why people were underwhelmed by it. Brian Singer has NEVER respected the powers of the mutants in the X-universe. It's kind of hilarious in Apocalypse he actually gets most peoples INITIAL powers right and then completely WHIFFS on the four horseman. Apocalypse doesn't just HAVE four protectors that are called the four horseman he actually bestows upon them the powers of the four horseman War, Pestilence, Famine, and Death.
War enrages you and the people around you, causing riots and chaos thus it is extremely hard to defeat War unless you are someone who is extremely disciplined because he will use your mind against you, cause you to lash out in an almost berserker rage. Granted you COULD just send Wolverine after him, I mean what difference is it going to make causing a Berserker to go Berserk, am I right.
Pestilence causes you to become sick and diseased. You body wracked in pain, lesions may form, blood may leak from sores on your body or from your ears, nose, eyes, and mouth.
Famine causes you to waste away like there is no food anywhere near by. Like you are starving and dehydrated. This in the comics is also usually a Wolverine or Colossus opponent because Steel doesn't eat and even if you do try to suck the life out of Wolverine's cells HEALING FACTOR.
Death, really doesn't need to be explained. It's kind of funny because in the comics when he corrupts Angel to BECOME his Archangel he is the Archangel of Death and BOY do those wings know how to bring about death.
Now yes the mutants who BECOME these horseman tend to already have powers that he augments either through equipment, boosting their current abilities, or instilling/injecting/or endowing them Mr. Apocalypse fully enjoys the mythos behind the four riders. And for whatever reason while allowing Storm to fly, giving Psylocke a HUGE sword(I wonder if she has a little ENVY in there), Having Magneto yanking huge slabs of ore, and of course his "beloved" Archangel of death didn't really see too many of the fire and brimstone powers there. And because of that I think the final fight isn't as grandiose as it could be, especially in light of the way the mixing and matching of combatants happened in Civil War. Where no one was useless or out of place, nobody seemed to be dead weight in a fight of heavy weight evenly balanced sides. Unfortunately in X-men Apocalypse, it really does seem like a "why BOTHER" the two most powerful beings end up settling things, which really isn't the X-men way of doing things. The X-men are a team, I would think after two movies where the team working together to save the day and possibly one person getting some shine but everyone contributing they would have learned. Yes there were lots of special effects, especially in the final fight scene but he kind of cheapened them a little. Because some of them could be considered to TECHNICALLY not count.
Now yes Apocalypse is known to heal MOST wounds, has been known to enhance other mutants, and has been known to change bodies, hmmm this one is kind of borderline spoilerish, I mean it is in the trailer but it's kind of a misleading. Especially when it's an actual power that he possesses, anybody who has watched a cartoon, read a comic, or seen an animated movie will tell you "yeah he does that all the time." X-men Apocalypse also takes a lot of bites at old apples, the Summers apple, the Jean Grey Apple, the dynamic between Charles, Magneto, and Raven, Hank McCoy and his on again off again blueness, some of the mess made by a lot of the Wolverine cameos(and DEFINITELY the Origins Wolverine movie). Some of them are done quite well, others are getting kind of worn out(though technically like the Avengers Mansion, Chuck's house does get blown up alot). And Singer often takes comic panels out of context(as he does in one scene in this movie) which while the imagery is kind of cool you go "well if you can steal this panel why don't you use the characters who were in it." There are quite a few characters MISSING from a good Apocalypse story, and considering that he is one of the X universes big bads, ENDEARING BIG BADS, you would think if you HAD the chance to use the characters that usually pop up when Apocalypse does you would. If you want to call me nit picky, I'll allow it but there wasn't enough Pale, Purple, and red in this movie for me, nor was there enough Silver, gray, and yellow. The movies that make the most money in the comic book genre are starting to be the ones that not only can figure out how to ADAPT properties they don't own all the rights to, but to adapt them in such a way where while we know who ISN'T there, we also know that you aren't rubbing our noses in it.
Yes we roll into the theater in hopes of seeing our favorite comic book character, but no longer will it be the easy line up just to throw cash at another lazy Hollywood offering. I think Fox saw the bomb that was Fantastic 4, adjusted the script of X-men Apocalypse and some of the costume designs, but didn't have enough time after Deadpool. So while they did much better with this film than they did Fantastic 4, because of what has already transpired this year, it's not going to get the pass it did in other years. We have already Had Avengers, and Age of Ultron, and now Civil War, Ant-man, and Deadpool. the excuse that you can't do a more FAITHFUL adaptation of a comic book is starting to look staler and staler. To make matters worse, Fox isn't about to get a sympathetic ear, because if they complain that "oh well we don't have the rights to all the characters" I am pretty sure that the fans will just say "Give the rights back to Disney Marvel and stop making crappy or half hearted movies with them." Because while there is SOME fan service in Apocalypse it looks more like an after thought than "Hey I really think the fans will like this." Now yes I am sure there will be plenty of cool bits in the deleted scenes later, but one of these days saying "oh but this deleted scene" is going to get tired. Seriously, you could have tacked another 5 minutes on here if there was somethings else you feel we needed to see. The movie is paced pretty well, and I won't say it bogged down in the last 15 minutes, but you did kind of go the nuclear option AGAIN, when it might have just been smarter to let the other guy handle it. You know the guy who could have left him in a solid object? I'll never get that, sometimes just go the freaking easy way, yes special effects are nice, but sometimes just toss the grenade in the thing and close the lid, you don't always need to send an ICBM.
I have a fond wish that one of these days Singer will read a few comic story arcs and go "well, why didn't I just let this happen. I mean it makes so much sense no wonder people are always ragging on me." Then again, he actually likes Superman and yet made Superman Returns so *shrug*. X-men Apocalypse is one of Singer's better X-men movies, but it isn't without some of Singer's usual faults when it comes to the X-universe. Like I said he appears to be over his threesome fetish(focusing on 3 characters and making all interactions as well as the majority of the camera time revolve for the most part around them), especially with How Raven and Charles seem less like scorned lovers when they talk, more like brother and sister worried about a wayward sibling when they discuss Eric's current dilemma. You also see that while Quicksilver is cocky that when he removes people from the house he takes as much care as possible to try and make sure everyone lands safely before the house is completely destroyed. As much as I like the actor who plays BEAST I'm sorry he is too small. Beast is a genius who is build like a defensive end/linebacker, why? Because while he is a certified genius he also has major league strength, agility, and endurance. I believe beast can pick up between 10-35 tons and to get people to back off and leave him alone about his HUGE BODY he decided to go out for sports which kind of normalized him in the eyes of many, I mean who doesn't love a jock?
I think if you enjoy Marvel comics that you should give X-men Apocalypse a watch, there will be a lot you like, there will be some head scratchers, and at the same time there will be some things you probably wish they had taken a do over on and just gave you some of the characters they have the rights to but not the guts to put on the screen. I agree this is Brian Singer's best X-men movie, but in light of the REST of the comic landscape being created by people who have more love for the source material than they do their name on the bill, it might just be too little too late.
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