Film Review - X-Men Apocalypse (2016)

X-Men Apocalypse is the fourth X-Men film directed by Bryan Singer and takes place 10 years after Days of Future Past where the world has accepted mutants and Xavier (James McAvoy) has now established his School for the Gifted, Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) is out and about in the world rescuing Mutants from harm and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) has gone into exile but the rise of En Sabah Nur aka Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac) may well change the world into a new dark age.

This was my most anticipated film of the year by some measure as I am a huge fan of the X-Men as well as the previous 3 films Bryan Singer has made, they were tightly edited, had a real blend of storytelling, action and character and they felt like they were about something rather than just being a special effects fest but that 3peat is very tough to top but could Singer do it again and make it 4 in a row?

Well he did but not to the extent he did on X-Men 1 and 2 and Days of Future Past but this is also a very very solid movie that I had a lot of fun watching:

- First off Singer's direction is still very good and I feel that because he had such a firm hand on the directorial whip that this movie does not descend into a gigantic incoherent mess each scene is well staged, the performances for the most part work with 1 big exception and his action scenes were very well filmed a nice relief from the endless and annoying and tiresome shaky cam quick cutting that we sadly see far too often in action films nowadays.

- Secondly I have to give praise to John Ottman in terms of both his editing and scoring work on this film, he cuts the film very tight (again there is 1 exception) and his score is excellent first with the opening cue from Ancient Egypt with the choir score and then hearing that theme music again from X-Men 2 and Days of Future Past OH SO GOOD! and the mixing in of the 80s songs was also very nice, Ottman is an underrated contributor to this series and he does great work again here.

- And lastly all of the performances are very solid, McAvoy and Fassbender are wonderful together and they remind you oh so much of Sirs Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen from the first 2 films, Lawrence was fine but it is one of her weaker performances in recent years while Nicholas Hoult, Rose Byrne, Olivia Munn and Ben Hardy were pretty solid in their roles while Evan Peters is just delightful as Quicksilver and he has much more to do here and he makes the most of every scene he's in, I hope to see more of him in movies soon.

But that new young cast oh my goodness they steal the show for me, Tye Sheridan, Sophie Turner, Kodi-Smit McPhee, Lana Condor and Alexander Shipp are just wonderful as the all new and much younger X-Men characters and I really hope that they will get their own film where they're front and centre as they more than deserve it and it also shows how making this work would've made X-Men First Class a much stronger film as the kids in that film were its weakest element for me.

However the film has 3 very significant issues that cannot be ignored:

- First off Simon Kinberg's script is pretty flat and at times it tries to do so much with its storytelling and characters that it struggles to give each character a true moment to shine, it also doesn't really have the heart and the depth that X-Men 1, X-Men 2 and Days of Future Past had going for them and speaking of X-Men 2 it is a real real shame that Michael Doughtery and Dan Harris who did such a great job on X-Men 2 (it's still my fav of the series) couldn't have written the screenplay with Kinberg as I feel that if they had then a lot of those story/character issues might have been fixed.

- The second is Oscar Isaac as Apocalypse, he looks fine in the role but his voice is so heavily modulated that it sucks any and all emotion from his voice and makes him sound like a flat and generic bad guy with a deep voice and if you've seen A Most Violent Year, Inside Lleweyn Davis, Ex Machina and the Force Awakens this man can work genuine wonders with his voice.

But sadly because of the extensive modulation I just never got into that character and as a result I have to say that all 4 of the Comic Book films released so far this year have dropped the ball in this department and I am getting sick of it frankly because time and time again this genre has done this and as a result I find it difficult sometimes to care about whether the heroes win the day, hopefully Thanos will be better in the 2 part Infinity War Avengers film.

- And lastly the Wolverine cameo (don't worry if you saw the last trailer for the film it shows you he's in it) was utterly utterly utterly pointless and it's a good 10 minutes that frankly should have been removed from the film and given to the other characters that desperately needed it and who play a much more important role in the story than he does and one scene as part of this just made me cringe big time, I wish that he had been cut from the film entirely as this was the only time I felt the near 2.5 hour length of this film.

And so that was X-Men Apocalypse, a film that I felt did deliver the goods and left a big smile on my face when I walked out of the cinema but at the same time those flaws are big enough for me to say that it is the weakest of Bryan's X-Men films but still I think it's worth seeing, 3 and a half out of 5.