X-Men Apocalypse |OT| Days of Past Future

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My impressions from the spoiler thread a few days ago:

Sgt. Kabukiman said:
Just saw it. I really enjoyed it even though there are plenty of flaws. If like me you happen to be an old-school X-Men reader who also loves the Singer version despite the many "adjustments", you will probably have a good time.

Here are my thoughts, keep in mind that I am not a native english speaker so my apologies if my ramblings are difficult to read:

The highlight was definitely the Quicksilver scene, which is one of my favorite superhero action scenes. Maybe even better than the airport scene in Civil War. CW is the better film though and I say this as someone who generally prefers the Singer films to the MCU. But the cinematography and soundtrack are definitely better here and it's absolutely exhilarating and hilarious at the same time and it really comes out of nowhere.

Cyclops is also very good in the film and has a nice arc, same with Nightcrawler. Storm doesn't have much to do but I like the actress, I loved her look and accent and I hope she will still have her badass mohawk in the next one. There is a certain elegance in the way Singer puts together his films and that is definitely still the case here, it is a very beautiful movie at times and the shots and cuts are very well orchestrated.

Unfortunately there are also a lot of issues with the film. They didn't ruin the experience for me but I understand the reviews. I think after 3 films Singer ran out of story ideas and decided to please the fans and give them what he thinks they want which is often a mistake. To do that, he had to go outside of his comfort zone as a filmmaker and it doesn't always work. Here are my biggest issues with the film :

- Apocalypse. He doesn't look good and just isn't an interesting villain. I actually wanted him to give an evil monologue to clearly explain his plans even though that is a cliché. His motivations for wanting to destroy the world are pretty murky. A small monologue about the survival of the fittest would have helped.
- The horsemen are mostly wasted. Psylocke fans, you will not be pleased.
- The characters motivations in the third act make no sense. I won't go into details but considering the stakes and
the millions of lives lost (probably, none of it is really shown)
, there should be no redemption possible for anyone who associated with Apocalypse even though
some of them turn against him at the last second
.
- Jean Grey has a great story arc in the movie but my god Sophie Turner is TERRIBLE. I agree that Jennifer Lawrence isn't great as Mystique either but she is still tolerable. I have nothing against Turner and I like her on GoT but a lot of the film rests on her shoulders and she is the weakest actor in the film by far. Her line delivery is absolutely awful.

The X-men movies that I love:
1) X2
2) Days of Future Past
3) First Class

That I like:
4) X-Men
5) Apocalypse
6) The Wolverine (to be honest, 5&6 are pretty much a tie for me I think, I will need a second viewing)

Feel indifferent about:
7) Last Stand

Absolutely hate:
8) Wolverine Origins
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Even though the film is problematic, I hope it does well at the box-office. They should have moved the date instead of releasing it against Alice in the US. Despite the failings of the script, Singer proves yet again that he is one of the best directors in the realm of superhero films. But I think he has said what he had to say with the X-Men and he should probably move on or only be involved as a producer.

He gave us a great sci-fi film franchise but I think it's time for him to pass the baton. But please no reboot Fox! The X-Men franchise is in a good place right now and I think there are a lot of exciting stories left to tell in the Singerverse.
 
Movie was pretty bad.

At least it was the type of bad that's enjoyable for all the wrong reasons. This will make for a great MST3K.

But yeah, pretty terrible movie.

Nowhere near as good as DoFP. Overall boring. Bad acting, bad story, bad everything. That wolverine scene was worthless too.
 
I'm pretty undecided about going to see this, seems like a lot of people are down on it but now and then you hear some really positive impressions.

Might have to wait on the bluray for this.
 
So this is one of those 'trilogies' that goes 1 > 2 > 3 for me I guess. Not necessarily bad, just the 'third best' of what I felt has been a rather enjoyable series of X-Men films. Can't really think of much to add to the conversation but I will say this: I genuinely don't think the Quicksilver scene was necessary. Mostly because it felt like they were just trying to out-do the one from DoFP but forgetting why that scene worked so well previously. Here it felt, based on cinematography and how long-winded it felt, they were more focused on wowing people with the visual effects over anything else. Reason why it worked in the previous film was because how left-field the direction/music choice felt yet made for a really entertaining set-piece. Here...I dunno...just felt 'meh' no matter how great an 80's tune Sweet Dreams is.

Best scene/moment by far was
Eric seeing his daughter/wife get killed and die in his arms - subsequently letting Charles know he "tried living like them" or words to that effect. I'm not going to run the risk of looking like an idiot in questioning if a single arrow can puncture two people, but it at least added weight/believability to Magneto's character rather than just relying on the classic 'mutants rule; humans druel' spiel

Overall though - and I'm probably going to get a lot of hate for this - but I've enjoyed McAvoy's/Fassbender's portrayals of Charles/Eric. The latter especially.
 
MaybeBurger said:
Hugh Jackman's benny hill-esque
escape into the woods
had my cinema cracking up

also hugh is doing
a cameo more or less
so he's not as buff as he was during the wolverine movies which is a bit distracting. quite obvious
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Honestly, I found Jackman's physique quite distracting in DoFP - he was too toned, and too veiny. He was probably at his sexiest in the first movie, where he was fit but not excessively muscular.
 
Watched it a third time... I seriously love the movie. My ranking would be:

1) X-Men: Days of Future Past
2) X-2
3) X-Men: First Class
4) X-Men: Apocalypse
5) X-Men
6) X-Men: The Last Stand

If I were to count The Wolverine, it would be between Apocalypse and X-Men, probably.

Ignore the RT score and go have some mutant fun.
 
Finally an Xmen movie with epic action and stakes. The new class are all perfect and fit in so well. Sophie Turner was exceptional as Jean, just the right amount of curiosity about her powers mixed with fear over them.
Magneto's story was probably the weakest part of the while thing, but the awesome ending really depended in getting him where he was at that point.
That scene in the middle was awesome, whole theatre just erupted into applause.
The stinger wasnt as epic as DOFP or awesome as The Wolverine, but it could effect the whole franchise going forward..so that's cool. Could have spelt it out for just the movie fans though. So many just didn't understand it.
Easily my favourite Xmen movie and I have high hopes for the franchise after this and Deadpool both knocked it out the park.
 
This is the least excited I have been about an X-Men movie since the third travesty. Hopefully it's decent but the trailers have done nothing for me so far.
 
And it has been seen. I liked it. Wasn't a masterpiece in any sense of the word. It started off really strong but it went down hill slowly throughout the movie ending with a really bad ending. Post-credit scene was meaningless.

The parts were greater than the sum of them. There is a lot of details I like. It's how it failed to form a whole that disappointed me.

So, First Class is still best and the only one worth watching unless you're a fan of these kinds of movies.
 
Awesome review Bobby.

I'm pretty torn on this movie more so than I expected to be.
Like BvS it has ideas in there that makes me wish they executed better.
Loved Oscar's performance and they got his voice right after multiple attempts, but his bulky outfit and noticeable height is a big L.
I enjoyed the hell out of the first half with the highlights of Angel
joining the goon squad to a Metallica song
and that rocket scene with the great score.
I wasn't expecting to love JG and Cyclops as much as I did. Quicksilver and NC to my joy were both done great. I'm glad the film focused a huge part on them instead of JLaw because she was bland as can be.

Entire 2nd half was
giphy.gif
 
Sulik2 said:
Cap and Bucky have been pretty great.
Click to expand...
Way too one sided. I love the MCU but Bucky is more of a prop than a character.

That said, the Charles and Erik dynamic has been boring as fuck for awhile now. First Class is the last time I cared at all about their repetitive character beats and even then, only because it was an origin story.
 
just watched it, hated everything about it, just as I now hate my mates who forced me to witness this aesthetically awful trainwreck. Sigh

Wolvs cameo was kinda decent, though
 
I would have had no idea who Bucky was when he came back as the Winter Soldier if I hadn't read the comic. His character is Cap 1 is super unmemorable which isn't a good thing since that's the movie that's supposed to establish how close they were before Cap got frozen and Bucky became a brainwashed Russian assassin for 70 years.
 
Bucky was never given the development he deserved in order to occupy such a prominent place in Cap's MCU stories. He was barely a blip in the first movie.
 
Bobby Roberts said:
Bucky's mostly a non-character, though. That's one of the bigger problems with Civil War. We're asked to give a fuck about Steve protecting his friend but his friend is kind of a greasy piece of shit.
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They do ask a LOT of the audience to feel empathetic regarding Cap protecting his old friend, but it does feel unearned, particularly given the portrayal in CW and Winter Soldier.

Made for some incredible stuntwork regardless, but that is kind of all he added.
 
Just finished watching.

Well, that pretty much sucked. Plot was stupid, and I felt like everyone was wasted.
 
I don't like flashbacks, I think they're a narrative crutch you use when you can't properly explain what's happening. I don't get the flashbacks in this movie, they felt so cheap. The one that stuck out the most was Magneto's flashback when he was going through his "am I good or evil"-phase. Michael Fassbender is such a great actor. He could have done that scene with just his face.
 
Bobby Roberts said:
Has there been any pairing in any live-action Marvel adaptation that has been as consistently compelling and interesting to watch as Charles/Erik?

I say NO.
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Charles and Erik is Man vs. Man, but what is an arguably greater conflict?

Man vs. Himself!

McAvoy vs. Stewart! Let's have more of that somehow!!
ONSLAUGHT

okay, we don't have to do that
 
Glass Rebel said:
You saying you didn't like Brutasha?
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Come on man. I should hope nobody likes that shit aside from tumblr. The lines they got were awful too

Xavier/Magneto is always compelling when they have a scene together. I suspect it will be the case in this as well. Despite how mixed reviews are
 
budget CGI that looked real shit in some places. Assemble movie with no plot, but that's ok as it's rectified by the action scenes which were epic. Villain was very 1 dimensional like Ronan from Guardians of the Galaxy.

Fassbender is an awesome Magneto. Casting for Storm was great. Quicksilver stole the show again and Nightcrawlers jacket was awesome.
 
I thought it was a good fun movie, up there with CW in terms of me having great time watching it. Not overly serious like BvS and not too many jokes like CW. The opening scene was awesome. A bit too much Katniss tho..

Spoiler
I liked Havoc :( ,I hope he survives somehow.. also not sure why the jet engine can explode like that. Also thought the Apocalypse was gonna nuke everyone
 
Didn't particularly dislike it, which was a surprise given how completely sick I am of destruction porn. The writing was terrible and the CGI shockingly amateurish (especially that harbour location with the shipping containers, which looked like it could have been rendered on a Gamecube) but I like the core performances and character dynamics well enough that even while several of the actors were coasting, I was still at least somewhat invested in it despite the aggressively obvious flaws elsewhere. I also really like Sansa as Jean Grey, even though her accent's a bit crap.
 
xandaca said:
and the CGI shockingly amateurish (especially that harbour location with the shipping containers, which looked like it could have been rendered on a Gamecube) .
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I'm usually not one to nitpick on CGI but shot in particular was pretty rough. It looked like a preproduction render that somehow slipped into the final movie.

It looked even worse on my second viewing. I kept wondering who thought that looked acceptable.
 
Yeezus H. Christ said:
:/

A lot of what I'm reading makes it sound like Age of Ultron: Fox Edition.
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It's not. Both movies were, to me, tiresome due to how they were constructed, but for different reasons. AoU was constant quips interrupted by big fights, some (forced) character melodrama and teasers for future shows. Also, Ultron was a joke of a character (literally, you don't make a robot who hates humanity and make him do funny faces and quips).

Apocalypse, on the other hand, is more a character driven story. The movie spends a lot of time setting up characters (at least the good guys + Magneto) and their relationships and their coming out of age stories, setting up Apocalypse (his rebirth, him assembling his team and showing off) but in the end, fails to actually deliver any threat.
After they are assembled, Apocalypse and the team spends the movie standing on a hill, and the last bad thing Apocalypse manages to do is trying to build a huge pyramid while disintegrating buildings in major cities... for some reason.
. The last battle was also really mediocre. The whole second part (one third?) felt as if someone noticed "damn, this movie runs for way too long now, so let's wrap this story as fast as we can". Even Apocalypse - I liked him (for what he was here - a powerful mutant with a god complex), but he was way underused. They could have done so much more with him.

As kinoki said earlier in the thread, the parts are greater than the sum of them.
 
Bobby Roberts said:
My review finally went up, if you're feeling like reading it.
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and you really can't turn in 60 minutes of heavy-lidded, half-assed Katniss and call it a fulfilled contract, Jennifer Lawrence.
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I didn't mind Lawrence's acting, but the character she was playing really didn't feel like Mystique. And I don't think it's really Jennifer's fault. She used her powers just once in the whole movie and for the rest of the movie... you could replace her with anyone else (even a normal woman) and no one would see the difference. And I'm not even talking about her not being blue for like 80% of scenes she's in.

I think making Mystique a good guy destroyed the character. You could see the original Mystique in X-Men 1 and X-Men 2: proud, human hating sexy mutant with combat skills and abilities to morph into anyone -- and she did use those skills a lot to her advantages there. Here - she's just there to give some speeches.
 
I was able to watch the movie last night. The movie appears confused, there's no central character or conflict. Some of the action sequences are both funny and compelling. It's like a kids movie with a lot of death and violence.

It's a safe, summer movie aimed at teenagers who don't know any better.
 
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