Review of X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) by Tjman09 — 26 May 2016

X-Men: Apocalypse, the follow up to X-Men: Days of Future Past, is finally here, and frankly i’m disappointed. The film suffers from a plethora of problems, and struggles to limp through which is shocking considering how great Days of Future Past was. X-Men: Apocalypse is entertaining, but suffers from terrible special effects and post production, and a very weak villain. The most sad thing about this film is that it had so much potential to be great, and just took a long walk off a short pier.

The biggest advantage this film has going for it is it’s super talented cast, who show up and give it their all, despite a weak script. Lawrence, McAvoy, and Fassbender all make this film as entertaining as they can, and the action sequences are fun to watch. However, the script has serious problems, many of which are too hard to overcome. Put frankly the story isn’t well crafted at all, it’s choppily thrown together more resembling a set of disconnected scenes following each other not a story.

The film’s biggest crux is it’s special effects and post production. This may sound odd, but they are, in some cases, so bad that they are distracting. The dialogue is one major problem, as clearly there was a lot of ADR (Automatic Dialogue Replacement) or dubbing, and it often doesn’t match the lips or doesn’t sound like the actor has the rest of the movie. Above that the special effects, whether practical or digital, looks bad. The CGI isn’t very good, the sets are noticeable and flat, Apocalypse’s makeup is obvious, not very good, and distracting.

On that note Apocalypse, the titular character is one of the movie’s biggest weaknesses. Noted as one of the comic’s coolest villains with an unflinching belief in darwinism, the film’s villain more represents a shell of that. Oscar Isaac isn’t the problem, as he gives the performance his best effort, but the character has weak motivations at best, and isn’t all that menacing or memorable. A product of a lazily crafted script where the character that binds it all together has no real dimensions and is essentially a flat shell of a cooler idea.

It’s ironic that Fox spent almost 200 million making Apocalypse, and spent just under 60 million on Deadpool, a far superior film. The best way to describe X-Men: Apocalypse is a mixed bag, because it’s not a terrible movie, but it’s not a very good movie either, it’s just mediocre. The film is obviously the product of a poorly crafted script, which is a shame, because it could have, and thus should have, been better.