Review of X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) by Plescar — 28 May 2016

I avoided reviews, even non-spoiler reviews before seeing the movie. I was excited to see the third installment but had little to no major expectations after the BvS incident (I disliked BvS very much, firstly because I expected more of an Injustice approach but eventually ended up disliking it because it did not convince me that that's how characters I knew would react in the provided situations; but I digress...).

I felt like the movie was not worth watching at all (my opinion... but this is my account, therefore relevant). Even though I liked First Class more than Days of Future Past, I loved what they did story-wise to Magneto in the sense that the character continued the story from where it was left off, though in the case of Apocalypse, I felt like the character was just introduced with, I don't know, am I supposed to think it was Polaris, his offspring, in his new exposition drama? I was thinking to myself: "Give this guy a break!", I mean not even Joss Whedon is this cruel to his characters over a hypothetical three movie-length series. Little to no dialogue on the supporting characters paired with little to no tension throughout the whole movie made me wonder when will the trailer will end and the movie begin. I felt that the editing did not focus on the story, and by this I mean that I felt that everything was predictable (the scenes were not transitioned in a way to make you wonder or to properly explain the situations, it felt like a roller coaster of unnecessary, poor and recursive exposition and action scenes); from the self-referential jokes about the third one in the series, to the Return of the Jedi twist that macguffinly presented a way for the good guys to win (the bad guy's apprentice turns on the bad guy because his son is in hurt by him, which I believe, is now a trope).

All in all it's a good story for a four to six part comic book story, but not enough for a movie to create a convincing scenario for an audience like myself (see there, I distracted a general criticism to emphasize on my point of view because critics don't make a movie good or bad, we all evaluate them more or less, but I believe that the more critical we become we encourage quality, but that's like the good side of something and it's completely subjective and all in all it's pointless... GODS, do I digress? Yes! Yes, I do.

And I just did again.). Where is the reactionary feedback from the humans? How come Apocalypse just picks Psylocke because she's there, and moreover, where's her character? How come we don't establish Storm better? Why does Sophie Turner look like she's waiting to be directed more than embodying the character she's supposed to portray in a more vivid way(I mean, I know she doesn't fully control her abilities and all, but she seems to be stuck aside from her "Watch this, I can make us like we're not here gimmick.")? Why do we focus on the same "Oh, Professor X stands for this, and Magneto is just too radical!" crap? I mean over the span of three movies I guess that I expected something, but only after feeling disappointed for SOME REASON when the movie was over.

Just to be sure I clarified: I did not go in wishing this movie to suck. I did not have high expectations for it as a new installment in a superhero movie franchise. I just feel like it fell short of being a good movie. I don't think it was bad. I think it was mediocre and with some technical flaws. But that doesn't make the movie less enjoyable unless you feel it's boring you. And that's what I felt. A redundant approach towards characters over a plate of mix of good and bad CG effects (by my appreciation, here's an example of what I mean: Psylocke's effects were awesome but the whole tearing Cairo asunder felt like a video game cut-scene from the 2000 and by that I don't mean necessarily bad, but completely breaking immersion from the rest of the action).