X-Men: Apocalypse – Film Review by Robert Dooley

Director: Bryan Singer
Writers: Simon Kinberg (screenplay), Bryan Singer (story)
Stars: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence

When a film opens with a super powered battle inside a collapsing pyramid in Ancient Egypt and can also take in Auschwitz being destroyed with the power of magnetism, I think it’s fair to say that subtlety wasn’t the aim. X-men Apocalypse is Bryan Singer’s fourth go in the X-directing chair and is the third film in the reboot/prequel (rebootquel perhaps?) chronology. Falling far short of Matthew Vaughn’s First Class, this is Singer’s best entry whilst still suffering from the same old problems.

Picking up ten years after Days of Future Past, Apocalypse tells the story of the resurrected “first mutant”, an all powerful being who is awakened after thousands of years hibernation. Catching up on the complete history of the world by touching a television set he decides that humanity has ruined the world with machines and must be stopped. It’s all fairly ambiguous but once again it’s up to Professor X and his students to save the day.

All of the key players are back, James McAvoy’s Professor X has been teaching at his school and Michael Fassbender’s Magneto has been living a Walton-esque existence with his wife and child, while Mystique has been traipsing the world as a type of mutant freedom fighter. The big surprise in this film is Apocalypse himself. His design is awful, looking like his was picked off a pile of costumes discarded from the Power Rangers series for being too goofy. But the completely unrecognisable Oscar Isaac is great in the role, really letting loose and clearly having a good time almost becoming a pantomime villain. It really works though and he adds a lot of menace and fun to proceedings.

The rest of the new characters don’t fare so well. Apocalypse imbues his Horsemen with new powers, outfits and fancy haircuts but sadly doesn’t have the power to give any of them any actual character or dialogue. This sums up the problems with this film and this franchise as a whole. Singer doesn’t seem to understand any of these characters and, like Quicksilver in the last film, the characters are seemingly there just because the special effects will look good. Except that the effects veer from excellent to awful even within the same scene. Similarly, tonally it’s all over the place with jokes crowbarred in at the wrong times that can deflate the tension.

Also wedged in is Wolverine, because of course it’s an X-men film and he’s gotta be in it. The plot is forced so far off course to get his wordless cameo in that you have to question why Simon Kinberg is allowed to write these films. But you just kind of go with it, because it’s fun. If you don’t look too hard that’s what we have here, a fun and at times ridiculously goofy movie with a massively entertaining villain.