MOVIE REVIEW
Movie Review : X-Men Apocalypse
By the time you ' ve heard the fi fth cliched sentence - like many you ' ve heard in the 7 X-Men fi lms preceding Apocalypse and countless others - you know exactly what you ' re in for . " Everything they ' ve built will fall ! And from the ashes of their world , we ' ll build a better one !" exclaims latest super villain Apocalypse ( an absolutely wasted Oscar Isaac ) before trying to bring about , well , the apocalypse . STALE FARE Perhaps Bryan Singer should take that advice himself . His latest is a been-there-done-that kind of movie , a sort of throwback to the fi rst couple of X-Men fi lms that follows franchise formula pretty closely . Namely : Heroes and villains , both old and new , clash with each other before recognising and joining forces against a greater enemy that threatens them all . Cities are demolished , mutant powers are showcased , punches are thrown ( mental ones too ) and at some point Charles Xavier ( James McAvoy ) makes a heartfelt plea to the humanity he knows still exists somewhere inside Erik Lehnsherr / Magneto ( Michael Fassbender ). Wolverine gets one completely mad dog scene before rushing off into the wilderness - but not before he gets teenage Cyclops ( Tye Sheridan ) jealous over him and Jean Grey ( Sophie Turner ). Huh . Wonder when we saw all those plot lines last . CLICHE CENTRAL If Apocalypse is truly to be the end of the First Class Trilogy , then none of the characters have really learned anything new or progressed since the last fi lm . Prof Xavier is successfully running his school for the gifted . But there are no X-Men yet so you gotta wonder what he ' s really been up to over the past 10 except for grooming his perfect hair . Hank McCoy / Beast ( Nicholas Hoult ) is still teaching there and he gets the lovely job of looking after new recruits Jean Grey ( Sophie Turner ), Scott Summers ( Tye Sheridan ) and Nightcrawler ( Kodi Smit-McPhee ). So far , the same old . In Germany , Mystique ( Jennifer Lawrence ) is running around trying to help mutants . Magneto , who ' s settled down in Poland after the events of the last fi lm , is brought back into he fold after his wife and daughter are killed . That obviously puts him back in the foul mood we ' re so accustomed to . They ' re soon all brought together , including Quicksilver ( Evan Peters ) who ' s looking for his dad Magneto , when CIA agent Moira Mactaggert ( Rose Byrne ) accidentally witnesses the resurrection of En Sabah Nur / Apocalypse , the world ' s oldest mutant who ' s woken out of a 3,000 year slumber . The titular heroes ' plan once he wakes up and sees the decadence of the ' 80s is to bring about a new world order . Which means wiping out all of humanity , of course , with his
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sand-controlling powers . And since his original Four Horseman are long dust , he acquires four new followers - Storm ( Alexandra Shipp ), Angel ( Ben Hardy ), Psylocke ( Olivia Munn ) and Magneto . Everything that follows is formulaic and stale , stuffed with some great CGI- stuff . Yawn . FLIMSY STORYLINE As an audience , we ' ve been getting used to superhero fi lms with a large number of characters . Some manage to keep the story intact by using the characters to add richness . But while most Apocalypse is cluttered , that clutter doesn ' t serve the fi lm well at all . That ' s because X-Men movies are usually at their best when they hone in on one specifi c relationship . The debut fi lm in the franchise was driven by Wolverine and Rogue ' s close bond as outsiders . X2 was about Wolverine battling with his past . First Class dove into the complexities of Xavier and Magneto ' s friendship . Days of Future Past was largely about Mystique and Professor X ' s journey toward redemption . The movies of the franchise have always fared best when the confl icts are personal . It ' s why we love characters like Xavier , Magneto , and Wolverine . It ' s never been about their super powers ; it ' s about their struggles and shortcomings . But Apocalypse gives us about 10 % of back-story for 90 % of its characters , and only really focuses on large-scale CGI destruction . It ' s the adults ( McAvoy , Lawrence , and Fassbender ) who really end up doing the emotional heavy lifting . Isaac ' s Apocalypse is like a dull version of Tom Hardy ' s Bane - brutish and monosyllabic . And for the most part , every other character in Apocalypse is a glorifi ed cameo . They show up , say a line or two , shoot laser beams out of their eyes or some other cool thing , and disappear . Munn ' s Psylocke ( who looks like she stepped out of Power Rangers ) exists purely for her assets . But it ' s Evan Peters and Hugh Jackman who steal the show ( again ) with two brief sequences that are more fun and exciting than the rest of the fi lm ' s runtime . Note to Fox and Marvel , we need a Quicksilver standalone fi lm . Evan Peters , much like Ryan Reynolds ' Deadpool , has that perfect mix of smarmy and badass . THE VERDICT Singer ' s latest fi lm is overloaded with action and computer-generated mayhem to conceal its own shortcomings : it has nothing new to say . So basically in a year where the superhero genre has arguably hit the heights of greatness ( Captain America : Civil War ) and the depths of the cesspool ( Batman v Superman : Dawn of Justice ), X-Men : Apocalypse is in the middle area while teetering toward the lower side of the scale . Trust your gut , skip this one and wait for it to come on TV .