X-Men Apocalypse Review Thread

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roflwaffles said:
When John Campea doesn't think a superhero movie is all that good, you know something is wrong.
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I dunno about all that.

Campea is a very enthusiastic fan but I'm not certain he's all that great as a barometer of filmmaking quality.

That said - this isn't Singer's finest hour by a longshot. That said, he does a lot of stuff in this that he hasn't really ever tried in an X-Men film before, and he gets a lot of that right, too.
 
Chris Stuckmann review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Az4FhLchHsk

Bobby Roberts said:
I dunno about all that.

Campea is a very enthusiastic fan but I'm not certain he's all that great as a barometer of filmmaking quality.

That said - this isn't Singer's finest hour by a longshot. That said, he does a lot of stuff in this that he hasn't really ever tried in an X-Men film before, and he gets a lot of that right, too.
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Oh I don't think he is either, I just find it strange that this is the one comic book movie the man hasn't liked that much other than F4 in the past few years I've been listening to him.
 
guek said:
I'll try to answer as best as I can.

I don't think Singer's X-men movies are completely bereft of what's core to the comics but there are definitely areas where they are sorely lacking - not as films but as an adaptation. Singer gets a lot of stuff right though. His casting is usually pretty good, he incorporates franchise staples like Cerebro and the school very well, everyone's powers work as they should more or less, he keeps the central conflict on point, and he understands Xavier and Magneto. That last point is probably his greatest strength in terms of adapting the source material.

Where he falls short though are some of the more intimate aspects of the X-men. While all the pieces are there, most of the relationships are a superficial facsimile at best, especially in his first two movies. That's because the first two movies use Logan as the POV character and primary protagonist without ever really establishing his role among the X-men. He's still an outsider in X1 and X2, a loner who plays by his own rules. What Singer fails to establish is a sense of family and belonging the X-men are meant to represent. Logan never really becomes part of that family in either of the first X-men movies. This would be fine if Logan weren't the center point to both those films but unfortunately that's how they're constructed. The result is this constant outside looking in perspective which makes the sense of teamwork and unity that's core to the franchise notably absent. There was nothing inherently wrong with making Logan the central protagonist but he never really makes him an X-man. Logan doesn't live at the mansion, he doesn't train with the X-men, and he fails to develop strong believable bonds with the other characters.

When you look at it that way, it's easy to see why so many of the relationships feel off. Logan continually creeps on Jean but why? He has like three conversations with her in X1 before leaving and about the same in X2 before she dies. And it's not like they develop any of their relationship off screen, we literally see everything that ever happens between them because the movies follow Logan so closely. So where does this deep seeded love for Jean come from? This problem extends to his relationship with Cyclops and Storm as well. He's supposed to be rivals with Cyclops but they should also develop a mutual respect between one another and a bond over their love of Jean. That never happens and instead they never go beyond merely hating each other. Logan and Storm's relationship is even worse considering it's basically nonexistent despite their history of being incredibly close in the comics.

So Logan is the center of these movies and yet his relationships with everyone are shallow at best. Everything about them is told to the viewer instead of shown or developed on screen. And with such a strong emphasis on Logan the outsider, Singer spends most of his energy making sure Logan looks badass instead of developing any kind of group dynamic either on or off the battlefield. So Storm, Cyclops, and Jean all get their moments to show off their powers but never as a coordinated team because that doesn't work when Logan fights alone all the time. Instead what you mostly get from them are these brief snippets of special effects in lieu of compelling action sequences. The vast majority of the standout action in X1 and X2 is centered around Logan fighting by his lonesome.

I want to reiterate here that most of this doesn't make for a bad movie if you're willing to focus solely on Logan like Singer wants you to. But if you care at all about doing the other characters justice, you're sore out of luck. To make matters worse, Singer also liked to throw in popular characters as glorified cameos or just shells of their actual comicbook counterparts. Seeing Colossus in X2 for something like five seconds was such a cocktease. Kitty Pryde is in X1 sorta kinda not really. Lady Deathstrike is a major villain in X2 but shares no similarities with her comicbook character apart from her claws. That just stings because the movies can't even get the core relationships right but still flaunts these other beloved characters in front of you. The major exception is Xavier and Magneto whose relationship is pretty damn good. I thought Singer nailed their dynamic in all his films.

I hope that helped illustrate how these movies feel a little hollow. Again, not necessarily as films but definitely as X-men movies. I should also point out that a lot of these problems were much improved in DoFP - mostly because of the decreased focus on Logan and the use of Xavier and Magneto to drive the story forward.
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Going to show this to interested friends. Perfectly on point.
 
Reading the more negative reviews, I dont' think it's the superheroes causing fatigue on the critics part this time around. I think it's the storytelling.

And that's a problem with large-scale sci-fi action in general, not superheroes specifically - although Superheroes do help provide a bit of focus on the repetitive elements in the storytelling that cause people to maybe start checking out.

People aren't ever going to get tired of superheroes in fiction. Sure as hell haven't over the last 80 years. But you'll probably get people becoming increasingly bored if you don't keep putting them in new, interesting situations.

Basically, and this isn't just a superhero problem, but you can't keep threatening the existence of the planet itself and have that be the entirety of your stakes. You can only go so big so often before people start to tune your particular style of mayhem out.

It's like any kind of pop-songwriting, really. This shit moves in cycles. A single that kills in 2002 probably won't land the same in 2012, but if you make it to 2022, that single might be the shit again.
 
My initial reaction when coming into this thread was "Ooooohhh...."

This'll probably make me see First Class and Days of Future Past finally.
 
Bobby Roberts said:
Reading the more negative reviews, I dont' think it's the superheroes causing fatigue on the critics part this time around. I think it's the storytelling.

And that's a problem with large-scale sci-fi action in general, not superheroes specifically - although Superheroes do help provide a bit of focus on the repetitive elements in the storytelling that cause people to maybe start checking out.

People aren't ever going to get tired of superheroes in fiction. Sure as hell haven't over the last 80 years. But you'll probably get people becoming increasingly bored if you don't keep putting them in new, interesting situations.

Basically, and this isn't just a superhero problem, but you can't keep threatening the existence of the planet itself and have that be the entirety of your stakes. You can only go so big so often before people start to tune your particular style of mayhem out.

It's like any kind of pop-songwriting, really. This shit moves in cycles.
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Like Guy with a Gun genre or horror movies?
 
Jack Remington said:
Bet this is still a lot better than Iron Man 3 or Thor 2.
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tXjgL.gif


I love these threads lol..
 
mreddie said:
Like Guy with a Gun genre or horror movies?
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Sure!

I do wonder if because Singer's made such a sloppy Singer movie, that it just really highlights how out of step he's been with the advancement in this particular genre. If this was 2005, this film would be wildly hailed as a kinda-amazing, super-ambitious symphony. But it's 2016 and it comes off like an indulgent, overlong guitar jam that still has a lot of really good moments in it.
 
Bobby Roberts said:
Sure!

I do wonder if maybe Singer's made a sloppy Singer movie, which just really highlights how out of step he's been with the advancement in this particular genre. If this was 2005, this film would be wildly hailed as a kinda-amazing, super-ambitious symphony. But it's 2016 and it comes off like an indulgent, overlong guitar jam that still has a lot of really good moments in it.
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So basically, a Foo Fighters album?
 
Bobby Roberts said:
Reading the more negative reviews, I dont' think it's the superheroes causing fatigue on the critics part this time around. I think it's the storytelling.

And that's a problem with large-scale sci-fi action in general, not superheroes specifically - although Superheroes do help provide a bit of focus on the repetitive elements in the storytelling that cause people to maybe start checking out.

People aren't ever going to get tired of superheroes in fiction. Sure as hell haven't over the last 80 years. But you'll probably get people becoming increasingly bored if you don't keep putting them in new, interesting situations.

Basically, and this isn't just a superhero problem, but you can't keep threatening the existence of the planet itself and have that be the entirety of your stakes. You can only go so big so often before people start to tune your particular style of mayhem out.

It's like any kind of pop-songwriting, really. This shit moves in cycles. A single that kills in 2002 probably won't land the same in 2012, but if you make it to 2022, that single might be the shit again.
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This should be pinned in the OP.

Jack Remington said:
Bet this is still a lot better than Iron Man 3 or Thor 2.
Click to expand...

Iron Man 3 is the best MCU film next to Spider-Man 2, Winter Soldier, GotG, and Avengers (haven't seen Civil War yet)
 
Bobby Roberts said:
Sure!

I do wonder if maybe Singer's made a sloppy Singer movie, which just really highlights how out of step he's been with the advancement in this particular genre. If this was 2005, this film would be wildly hailed as a kinda-amazing, super-ambitious symphony. But it's 2016 and it comes off like an indulgent, overlong guitar jam that still has a lot of really good moments in it.
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I'm kinda surprised at your comments to the point that it feels like the RT should eventually settle higher. Somewhere north of 50% at least. One of the complaints I'm seeing come up often is that the first half hour is a bit of a slog. Maybe after BvS and then Civil War, two long movies with slow first acts, another long movie with a slow first act so soon left critics feeling burnt out.
 
mreddie said:
So basically, a Foo Fighters album?
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See, now I'm trying to figure if One by One or In Your Honor is the better analog

guek said:
I'm kinda surprised at your comments to the point that it feels like the RT should eventually settle higher.
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I'm honestly kinda surprised it's even where it's at right now. It's partially why I've read the reviews I've read - I usually try not to do that if I have to write my own, but the discrepancy between what I felt coming out of the theater ("That was a messy, silly little X-Men adventure") and what I saw when I popped open this thread had me like "what in the fuck happened here?"

Mendelson's headline had me laughing. I thought for sure it was a parody thing. I really did.
 
Bobby Roberts said:
See, now I'm trying to figure if One by One or In Your Honor is the better analog



I'm honestly kinda surprised it's even where it's at right now. It's partially why I've read the reviews I've read - I usually try not to do that if I have to write my own, but the discrepancy between what I felt coming out of the theater ("That was a messy, silly little X-Men adventure") and what I saw when I popped open this thread had me like "what in the fuck happened here?"

Mendelson's headline had me laughing. I thought for sure it was a parody thing. I really did.
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Better or worse than 3 last Stand?
 
TI82 said:
Better or worse than 3 last Stand?
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Already asked and answered a couple times, but absolutely better than the Last Stand. It's way more successful in its excess than that movie was.

They do have things in common though. There's really no way around that. Both on a surface level and in more substantive ways. But it's easily a better film than that one was.

kurahador said:
I'm having a hard time believing Isaac being the worse part. He was great even in Sucker Punch.
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I didn't think he was bad, but then I never really expected him to do much more than stand around and bloviate. My familiarity with Apocalypse probably helped there, honestly.
 
Shit trailers = shit movie. News at 11. Can't say I'm surprised. The only question now is can we finally be done with fucking Bryan Singer?
 
Wow-za. Much worse than expected.

I guess I can save my money. It's too bad, though, given how great Days of Future Past was and how good First Class was.
 
Bobby Roberts said:
Already asked and answered a couple times, but absolutely better than the Last Stand. It's way more successful in its excess than that movie was.

They do have things in common though. There's really no way around that. Both on a surface level and in more substantive ways. But it's easily a better film than that one was.



I didn't think he was bad, but then I never really expected him to do much more than stand around and bloviate. My familiarity with Apocalypse probably helped there, honestly.
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Thanks for answering anyway :)
 
I knew this film would suck, even based off of the fairly poor trailers. Still, at least it isn't bottoming out as bad as BvS.


duckroll said:
Maybe this is the superhero fatigue we've heard so much about over the years. It's finally here!
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Captain America Civil War is currently sitting at 90% on RT.
 
Damn, I didn't think this was going to be bad.

I guess it's a win-win. The more xmen movies suck, the closer we get to them going to marvel or cutting a deal with marvel. The better they are, well, then we just get good movies.
 
guek said:
Hey Bobby, is JLaw's performance as bad as we feared?
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You guys feared some pretty fearful shit, so I dunno.

I wasn't fond of it, really. She's the catalyst/conduit by which a lot of what happens in the movie gets moving, but she's not the main character by any stretch. She's kinda like Wolverine in Days of Future Past that way.

But she really is turning in some half-ass Katniss. Shit is lazy. I don't know that it's bad. But it's not really doing anything, either.

NimbusD said:
Damn, I didn't think this was going to be bad.

I guess it's a win-win. The more xmen movies suck, the closer we get to them going to marvel or cutting a deal with marvel.
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I don't think it's bad.

I'm also pretty confident in saying your win-win scenario is more like wish-wish, because that shit is never going back to Marvel. Not after Deadpool.

(not before, either)
 
In my mind this didn't seem like a movie that needed to be made. I thought that DoFP really wrapped up the whole OG and prequel stories in a pretty fun way. Sure, the ending's pretty corny and a "walk off into the sunset" type thing, but I felt that it was a solid capper to the series. I'm sure comic book fans like the stuff that Apocalypse brings to life, but I'm not one of 'em.

I don't exactly know how the rights situation works, but I wonder if Fox could just make more Deadpool films to keep the X-Men license. Though obviously they likely had no idea how big of a hit this year's would be, and thus: Apocalypse.
 
TheFlow said:
yea X men is never going back after Deadpool.
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Fox's last Marvel film was Fant4stic, and there next one is a Wolverine solo film which have historically never been good. Deadpool was an accidental success on the studio's part (not accidental on the director/crew's part, but the studio didn't think it was worth making until someone went behind their backs and leaked footage to fans)

Deadpool's going to keep it in Fox's hands at least until Wolverine 3 and Gambit bomb, and will probably give Fox some leverage when they do strike a shared custody deal with Marvel, but they can't keep throwing good money after bad if they're batting average is going to keep declining.
 
Is Jackman in this movie? And, if so, how much? I figured out that he's the only thing about these movies that I'm interested in seeing, really.
 
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