X-Men: Apocalypse review: “The plot is sadly lame and stagnant from the get go.”

X-Men: Apocalypse review: Bryan Singer completes the prequel trilogy, but does he have anything new to offer?

The X-Men franchise really started off the current trend of superhero feature films. Batman was dead thanks to Messrs Schumacher and Clooney, and Blade had just given us a glimpse of hope into what could be achieved. X-Men was different altogether. It created an ensemble film of multiple characters with a plot that utilised the most up-to-date special effects, while also dealing with current social discussions. Now, a surprising and saddening 16 years later, the franchise is still going strong. It’s overcome a few slumps, but was picked up via an amazing prequel in the form of Matthew Vaughan’s X-Men: First Class.

Bryan Singer returned to the franchise with the last entry, X-Men: Days of Future Past, and despite being generally well received, it also felt like too much of an apology, as well as Singer marking his territory. First Class characters were killed off between films, Singer’s cast were brought back in, and the time-travel element produced a new timeline that erased all of the ‘mistakes’. Now Singer looks to further remind us that this is his franchise, by giving us a prequel following his cast of chosen characters from the original trilogy, now a lot younger (and probably cheaper).

There’s a part in this film where Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) exits a screening of Return of the Jedi and declares “At least we can agree that the third one is always the worst.” Well, let’s not get too cocky now. X-Men: Apocalypse sees a new batch of familiar students – including Jean Grey and Scott Summers (Tye Sheridan) start their days at Professor Xavier’s (James MacAvoy) School for the Gifted. Unfortunately an ancient mutant, En Sabah Nur (Oscar Isaac), once worshipped as a God in Egypt has been awoken and is searching out his four horsemen, Magneto (Michael Fassbender), Storm (Alexandra Shipp), Psylocke (Olivia Munn), and Angel (Ben Hardy), to help him bring about the end of the world. Can Xavier, Beast (Nicolas Hoult), Nightcrawler (Kodie Smit-McPhee), Cyclops, Jean, Quiksilver (Evan Peters), and Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) stop them?

The plot is sadly lame and stagnant from the get go. It harkens back to villain of the week excursions for superhero films, which is something the X-Men films have always cleverly avoided. They dealt with things such as the Mutant Registration Act, humans vs. mutants, a cure for mutants etc. Whereas now it’s just the most powerful mutant of all has to be stopped. Oscar Isaac has nothing to do but whisper and bellow, as well as awkwardly maneuver in his extensive make-up. Jennifer Lawrence gives the least invested performance I have ever seen in a big budget motion picture, failing to have fun or even emote. I’m sure the studio pushed her into more of the film than she wanted, but at least pretend you care. Her Oscar winning face must now also be seen for the majority of the film, kind of going against Mystique’s character.

Elsewhere the script has troubles trying to balance so many characters, becoming painfully obvious when a large percentage of characters just stop talking having been given no lines. Storm, Psylocke, and Angel are the worst affected by this, and only Munn escapes fading into the background thanks to her impractical get-up and her ability to convey a lot in the looks she gives. Considering we get zero background on her, at least we get a sense of her beliefs and ideals. The screenplay can’t even insert Magneto into proceedings organically, giving him more emotional motivation, as if Auschwitz wasn’t enough. It leads to him being the most flippity floppity character in superhero history.

Bryan Singer also seems lost. The film starts well as Singer gets to play with characters and introduce them (again), but he is soon forced to rest on his laurels as he takes us to settings we’ve seen, characters we know, and scenes he can rely on; of course we have a funny and creative Quiksilver slow motion sequence. The final act is just visual noise though, as Magneto drags everything metal in the world towards him, Storm creates a storm, and Apocalypse makes lots of stuff turn to dust. It’s a CGI overdose that fails to connect with its surroundings. Finding themselves swamped means the talented young cast will hopefully have a less crowded follow-up.

There’s certainly fun to be had, and the film could never be accused of being boring. There’s quite a bit of humour, great action, snippets of interplay between characters, and a short detour dedicated to everyone’s favourite mutant which deliciously teases the R-rated film he’s got coming up. The music is especially powerful at points, incorporating a more grandiose spin on the original theme, which goes someway to merging scenes seamlessly. I don’t hate this film, but nor did I hate X-Men: The Last Stand. However, both films didn’t make me feel much and the more I think about them the less satisfying they are. Where The Last Stand trumps this latest effort, is that it took chances (as much as fans hated the decisions) and tried to tell a lot of story in 104 minutes. Apocalypse would rather tell you very little in a bum numbing 144.

X-Men: Apocalypse review by Luke Ryan Baldock, May 2016.

X-Men: Apocalypse is released on 18th May.