Review of X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) by Shaswat C — 16 Sep 2016

X-Men Apocalypse feels like a mixed bunch after the underappreciated masterpieces that were First Class and Days of Future Past. It's a pretty X-Men movie, with the references to the comic lore all over the place.

Mystique has become a hero, mutants are more accepted now, but things are as bad as they were before underneath. The film also references First Class a lot, and in many ways, it's a thematic conclusion of Mystique, Magneto and Charles' story arcs from the first film.

The newbies get strong character arcs and Pietro steals the stage in his awesome slowmo scenes. Other good parts are the cinematography, which is great. There's a feeling of epicness that is there when Psylocke jumps from a plane and uses her psychic Katanas to land, Nightcrawler porting in the pyramid or when Magneto puts a metal X between the X-Men and Apocalypse.

However, there are negative parts to it as well. While the macro scenes are epic as hell, the micro scenes do not back them up. Some of the scenes such as Beast "rescuing" Raven, the "shounen" feel of the fights or Archangel's lack of expression (heck, character) took me out of the setting.

I think people will (as is the case with all non-Marvel Studio superhero movies) focus on the flaws and not on the good parts. I'm just sitting here waiting for the next installment. It'll be the 90s.

More mature Scott, Jean, Storm and Kurt. You know which story to do, Fox. It's X-Men in space time! Brood! Acanti! Starjammers!! Give them to me!