X-Men: Apocalypse
|  One of the primary strengths of the X-Men franchise—which now counts eight films over the past 16 years—has been its resistance to simplistic notions of good and evil. The films have thrived on the fact that its primary villain, Erik Lehnsherr, also known as Magneto, is a conflicted antagonist who does horrible things and often performs as a conventional mega-villain, but always out of a deep-seated ideology that is, in and of itself, not entirely wrong. Magneto’s war against humanity comes from his belief that humankind is inherently flawed and will eventually, one way or another, oppress and harm mutants, those people born with a special X-gene that gives them superhuman powers of various sorts. The thing is, Magneto is usually right on some level, as the films have depicted humanity at its worst, whether it’s the Nazis (who sent Erik to Auschwitz and killed his parents) or misguided politicians who want to persecute mutants in the name of law and order.Magneto (Michael Fassbender) is at it again in X-Men: Apocalypse, the third film since the series was rebooted in 2011 with X-Men: First Class and a direct sequel to 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past, which was also directed by Bryan Singer, a veteran of the franchise who helmed its first two films, X-Men (2000) and X2 (2003). However, this time Magneto is joining forces with the titular Apocalypse, also known as En Sabah Nur (Oscar Isaac), an ancient mutant—perhaps the world’s first—who was worshipped as a god in Egypt before being buried alive for 5,000 years. And therein lies the film’s problem. Apocalypse is by far the least interesting villain of the X-Men franchise, not only because his powers seem to be limited only by what the screenwriters need them to be at any given point, but because he operates out of the ages-old, extremely tired desire for world conquest. Unlike Magneto, who wants to go to war with humanity to protect himself and his kind, Apocalypse just wants to rule the world to quench his own thirst for power, which gives Isaac, buried under mounds of blue make-up, prosthetics, and CGI, very little to work with (he was infinitely more insidious as the sadistic computer programmer in Ex Machina [2015]). The film is set in 1983 (the previous two films took place in the early 1970s and the early 1960s, respectively, which gives the series an enjoyable retro vibe, albeit with enough subtlety and nuance that it doesn’t become a campy distraction). Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy), having shaken off the doldrums that haunted him 10 years earlier, is successfully running his School for the Gifted, which helps young mutants deal with and control their powers. He brings in several new students who are destined for great things, including the telepath Jean Grey (Sophie Turner), the blue-skinned German teleporter Kurt Wagner, aka Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee), and Scott Summers, aka Cyclops (Tye Sheridan), who discovers that his eyes can emit a powerful red laser. Meanwhile, Erik Lehnsherr is hiding in a small Polish village, where he has married and become a father and is attempting to lead a “normal” life under an assumed name. Of course, tragedy is just around the corner, the kind that pushes him back to the brink of hatred and fury, which is what draws him to Apocalypse, who has been released from his tomb and partnered with the weather-controlling Storm (Alexandra Shipp), the winged Angel (Ben Hardy), and the sword-wielding Psylocke (Olivia Munn). From there much havoc ensues as Xavier and his young students find themselves in Apocalypse’s crosshairs, resulting in the wholesale destruction of their school (the students are saved, in one of the film’s best scenes, by the superfast Quicksilver, played by Evan Peters, who plucks them from the fires of destruction in a slow-motion sequence set to the Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)”). Xavier also finds himself working once again with Moira Mactaggert (Rose Byrne), the CIA agent with whom he developed a relationship in X-Men: First Class before wiping away her memories of their time together. The screenplay by Simon Kinberg, who also co-wrote Days of Future Past, is at its best when it focuses on the characters and their various interpersonal struggles. The early subplot involving Erik and his family are by far the film’s most moving, and had the story focuses on him as a villain, rather than making him a surrogate to Apocalypse, it might have had more emotional resonance. Similarly, the various complexities of the relationship between Xavier and the blue-skinned shape shifter Raven (Jennifer Lawrence), who was once his adopted sister and has long wavered between allegiance to him and allegiance to Magneto, give the film a real sense of emotional depth. But, just when you start thinking there’s something there, the film shifts into wholesale destruction mode, with Cairo becoming ground zero for Apocalypse’s mega-destruction as he goes to war with the X-Men. Entire city blocks are laid to waste and Apocalypse creates a giant pyramid-monument, ostensibly to himself, although it could just as well be a memorial to yet another superhero movie that, without anything new to offer, just tears a lot of stuff down. Copyright ©2016 James Kendrick Thoughts? E-mail James Kendrick All images copyright © 20th Century Fox / Marvel |
Overall Rating: 
(2.5)
