Teased at the end of 2014's Days of Future Past, the story of the x-men's battle with the first mutant Apocalypse has come. Bryan Singer returns to direct this concluding chapter of the prequel trilogy which started with Matthew Vaughn's 60s auctioneer X-men: First Class and continued with Bryan Singer's return to the franchise X-men: Days of Future Past.
X-men: Apocalypse sees the rise of the most powerful mutant in the comics history and the true birth of the original x-men, Storm, Jean Grey and Cyclops. What is also worthwhile noting this film does all it can to keep true to the comics and come full circle within its 16 year cinematic history.
The film starts off with an exciting prologue narrated by the new Xavier (James McAvoy) and shows the beginnings of the first mutant apocalypse. After he is betrayed and buried alive we travel forward to the 1980s where we finally see the origins of the first x-men, Scott Summers. He's played with snarky intent by new comer Tye Sheridan. Tye makes for a much better Scott as he adds more layers to the character and actually makes him more suave, a more bad boy persona. Alexandra Shipp plays the role of Ororo Munroe aka Storm. We see her character's origins as she starts off as a mutant using her powers for thievery and she didn't always have the white hair. She is the first to meet apocalypse and become the first of his four horsemen. Alexandra is actually quiet good in the role, a surprise for an actress new to the film scape. She does a great job with the accent and is very defining in her role. I do feel Alexandra loves playing the character, it shows.
Time has passed and both Xavier and Eric are living their lives, Xavier has finally opened his school for the gifted and has become ever closer to the Patrick Stewart version of 2000. As for Eric, his character is living in peace with a good job and a wife and child, things are good. Raven, meanwhile, has become a saviour to mutants as she hunts down mutants in need. She rescues Nightcrawler (played wonderfully by Kodi Smit-McPhee) from a fighting ring similar to the one that contained Logan in the first film. The new angel is also seen in the fight as Nightcrawler's adversary. New comer Ben Hardy plays Angel and while there's not much of a backstory to his character (he got more of a backstory in The Last Stand) he eventually becomes one of the four horsemen and his transformation is both cool and terrifying. Olivia Munn (from the gamer program Attack of the Show) surprises as the character Psylocke. She is fantastic in the role and even did sword training for it. Her costume is identical to the one in the comics and she clearly is playing the role of Psylocke. She too becomes a follower of Apocalypse and is the one who leads him to Angel. The remaining Horseman is Eric, who goes down a dark path in this film. We see Michael Fassbender tap into Magneto's inner struggle to be good like Charles and live along side man, but when the family he tried to build is accidentally killed it triggers his inner anger and out of spite he joins Apocalypse in his mission to remake the world.
As villains go I was most excited about Apocalypse and how fascinating of a character he is. The costume is nearly spot on but one thing that is done right is the feeling of dread when he is near. I would smile whenever I saw him on screen but that is just due to the fact that I love his character so much. Oscar Issac does an amazing job humanizing him and acting under all the layers of prosthetics. Apocalypse is by far the most deadliest villain the x-men have faced as he uses Magneto to tap in to his inner power which leads to some of the biggest disaster sequences in the franchise. For those worried about how Apocalypse may be portrayed have no fear as the character stays true to the comic and is a true terror.
The film also sees a return of Alex Summers, Moira MacTaggert, Quicksilver and Stryker, as well as Wolverine. There is a terrific segment that sets up the future finale for Wolverine and finally brings the Weapon X story to the screen in the proper way.
And before I forget we also see new intros to such beloved X-men as Jubilee and Jean Grey. Sophie Turner is beautiful as Jean. She plays the role with amazing strength and portrays Jean's inner struggle perfectly, its a great start to reworking the eventual story of the phoenix (and yes there is an awesome easter egg in the final battle which confirms her eventual turn into the fiery bird). Vietnamese actress Lana Condor plays Jubilee and while she gets more screen time than she has previously and looks great in a costume inspired by her appearing in the 90s cartoon she sadly still does not use her powers. Fingers crossed her role gets enlarged down the road.
Music wise John Ottman returns for his third go around as composer. He is at his all time best in this series and it will be sad to see him go as he collaborates solely with Bryan Singer (Like Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass on the Bourne movies). He's done another amazing job composing the score for this epic finale and it is great to see him and Bryan complete something that they started together (though Michael Kamen scored X-men with Bryan Singer back in 2000 before his death.)
X-men: Apocalypse is a brilliant finale to the excellent prequel trilogy and is a major step above X-men: The Last Stand. To be frank I feel other critics were very harsh with this film as they saw it as nothing more than a boring, dull retread of things that have been done before. I for one was never once bored with the film, found it extremely entertaining and feel that the familiarity was a good thing. Other issues had been with the length of the film, lack of original villain and over abundance in action scenes. To clarify the length of the film was never an issue for me as the film flew by with excellent pace. Being a fan of Oscar Isaac I loved his portrayal of Apocalypse and felt him to be the first villain in the series to create world wide destruction. Maybe overall he's not the most original villain in film but within the x-men series he would only closely resemble the villain Sebastian Shaw as he too wanted to recreate the world but for mutants, apocalypse sought to rid the world of humanity and the weak, only the strong would survive.
If you loved the previous instalments or just plain love superhero movies, this one is a must see. Maybe not as excellent as Days of Future Past, Apocalypse is still a fun popcorn film to see this summer.
Rating: A-
