Review of X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) by Kitcatherine — 01 Jun 2019

This movie never failed to make me laugh at the very thought of the situation it was displaying and the dialogue it chose utilise. Problem of course being that is not a comedy movie. I am a big fan of the X Men prequels specifically, but I just have trouble understanding the motivation for a lot of the decisions made in this film. Why is Moira completely clueless? Why is she the one who accidently starts the apocalypse? Why doesn't anybody bother to name Erik's wife? Why were Erik's wife and daughter there, if only to be killed and not brought up again past act 1?

Somehow those decisions are not the worst part of Apocalypse. No, that definitely belongs to the category of decisions that have motivations, just either stupid or non storyline based ones. Ex: Moira being brought back into the story, which despite never being mentioned in Days of Future Past, was just because they needed to bring back Charles's obligatory female love interest. Why does Erik have a wife and child, if they don't even get a personality? Well, similar.

Ly, they just needed that sweet sweet domestically foiled character motivation. Why is Erik Peter's father? Gotta have that DRAMA. Why does Alex seemingly die? Maybe character motivation for Scott, though it didn't really seem like he needed any more. Stil I was having fun until one very particular decision was made in this movie:

How Charles Xavier lost his hair. But we’ll get back to that.

Moira MacTaggart was a completely unnecessary part of this film. Wanna know what she does throughout it? Goes “Wow” and “this is so cool”. In First Class, she at least had a personality, and she felt NEEDED to an extent for the story. Why is she here? Well Were just kinda supposed to believe that Charles has actually been hung up on her for, what, 15 years? Despite never mentioning her in Days of Future Past. First Class itself seemed to realise how unnecessary their relationship would be, sending Moira off with a wiped memory as a way out. We see this complete lack of necessariness in the very DRAMATIC moment where Charles gives Moira her memory back of the two of them. Memory being singular. Why? Oh, cause, y’know, they kissed one time. ONCE. For contrast, when Erik reminisces on his relationship with Charles, we are shown a whole two and half memories of them together, and the filmmakers don’t depict THEM of being in a relationship! MAKE IT MAKE SENSE! Moira could have never come up again and I would not have cared, I feel like most people wouldn’t have, but no, Charles needed that obligatory love interest, so we get Moira MacTaggart, who now has a child we’ve never seen, and is amazed by literally everything, which don’t even get me started on how THAT ruins the very bare bones of a character she had in First Class. Now I don't know if you know this, but Charles Xavier is bald in the non prequel films when he is old. Now any logical person would just (rightfully) assume he lost his hair naturally due to aging. But oh no, apparently the execs at Fox decided this was a fan theorised mystery that needed answers. "HOW DID CHARLES LOSE HIS HAIR?' you may have seen no Reddit thread titled ever, y'know, cause no one cared. Well! Answers my good people! Charles lost his hair because an ancient entity tried to take over his body! This makes no sense and ultimately solidifies this movie as a knee slapping comedy. When we see Apocalypse take over Oscar Isaac's body in the beginning, he is bald, but he is bald BEFORE apocalypse. Can apocalypse not exist in a body with hair? Why? How could Charles keep his eyebrows and stubble? Where did the hair go, it didn't fall out, it seems to turn to dust like everything else Apocalypse used his power on, why? Does apocalypse really hate hair that much? Did the filmmakers not realise how Mr. Clean like James McAvoy would look bald? Like yeah he's been bald in other movies bald that doesn't make it a good idea. WHY? DID? THEY? MAKE? HIM? BALD? Overall I had one take away: If I were any actor in this movie, I would be pissed. The performances are AMAZING, especially from James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender, but it just can’t save this piece of garbage. Whether this was an introduction or a long awaited conclusion of sorts, no one deserved to be given this piece of trash to work in, except definitely Bryan Singer. I would say this film being as terrible as it is is most likely in part karma from the gods for Bryan Singer, any other explanation can not offer enough grounds for making THIS BAD of a film.