X-Men: Apocalypse

Dir: Bryan Singer

2016

**

Matthew Vaughn's rather sleek and sexy X-Men:First Class almost seemed to come out of nowhere in 2011, with little hype in the grand scheme of things and with rather heavy anticipation. It was a huge hit, Vaughn got the style down perfectly, it was new but it also alluded towards the classic X-Men era of the 60s. X-Men fans and those new to the franchise were equally happy. Producer Bryan Singer took notice. Singer had made quite an impact with the original X-Men in 2000 and it is fair to say he gave the superhero/comic book genre the kick up it's bum it needed and made everyone else up their game. X-Men2 was even better and broadened the X-Men universe considerably, it was now a major franchise. However, soon after X2's success, Singer was given an offer he couldn't refuse. X-Men was his baby but when he was offered directional duties on the new Superman reboot, Superman Returns, he knew he'd have to hand it all over to someone else. Unfortunately that someone was Brett Ratner. X-Men: The Last Stand isn't bad but it is nowhere as good as the previous two films. Superman Returns on the other hand was abysmal. The franchise had to be rebooted, hard given that quite a few people had died in the last installment, so a prequel really was the only way. Singer decided to come back with a bang, he missed the last of the original films and the first of the new and decided to draw a line in the only way he could, he made a sequel to both films within one film. Not only did it work, it worked beautifully. X-Men: Days of Future Past  was very clever and went a long way in sorting out all the annoying continuity issues and bringing the franchise around full circle and starting afresh. It was a set up for the series to go forth and prosper. Unfortunately, its first step is somewhat of a stumble. For starters, the intro-scene is horrible. The audience is forcibly flushed head-first through a u-bend of nasty CGI and dodgy effects showing 'stuff that has happened' in the last few thousand odd years, skipping most of it, focusing on the Mona Lisa, the Nazis and then straight on to the the 1980s because  nothing much happened in the last 4000 years really. And why did it fast-forward to the early 80s? It's like the last scene of the last film never happened. Also, the cast have not aged twenty years, the original film only came out five years ago but somehow we're supposed to believe most of the cast, who are mostly in their twenties, are actually in their early forties. Michael Fassbinder's Magnito is supposedly in his early fifties, but looks every bit the thirty-eight year old that he was while filming. All that aside, there isn't even anything that suggests it is the 80s. First Class dripped 60's chic, Apocalypse features one 80's song, an arcade machine and Michael Jackson's jacket from thriller. The characters all seem rather different to. The new X-Men are given next to no development and it seems that Singer is so confident he's covered all the time-line continuity issues, he's forgotten the basics. Characters suddenly forget they've ever met one another, when it really wasn't that long ago they had been fighting either each other or alongside one another. These are forgivable niggles I suppose, what isn't forgivable however is the dreadful CGI. Some of the special effects are among the best I've but some are probably some of the worst, even by straight to video, bargain bin, cheap sci-fi horror standards. It is, at times, a bit Batman Forever looking. The costumes look like they're made out of plastic and the sets are very average looking. There is no striking scene by which most big blockbuster films are remembered for, in fact, it looks like a combination of all the previous film mixed up in one but out of laziness rather than as a clever acknowledgment. It's as if the intelligence/originality budget was all spent on the last film. Apocalypse, or En Sabah Nur, is the worst super-villain in years (maybe even on par with BvS's Doomsday), I'm a big Oscar Isaac fan but is his first big stinker, although I don't really blame him but rather how his character was written. An all powerful mutant hell-bent on the destroying the world and killing everyone in it should be scary, but he isn't, not in the slightest. Half the cast look like they don't want to be there, as if franchise fatigue has really kicked in and to be fair, most of the cast could do better. It's a good few steps back from the previous films, indeed, a carbon copy of the least impressive installments. In one particular scene, whereby some younger X-Men are seen leaving a showing of Return of the Jedi, a comment is made that 'The third film of the trilogy is always the worst', with The Last Stand clearly being the intended focus of the joke. The Last Stand is a masterpiece compared to Apocalypse, with Apocalypse lifting most of The Last Stand for all of its best bits. Apocalypse's few highlights are copies of scenes from previous films, sure each member of the X-Men have their own limited powers but how they are used specifically can be traced to either one of the films in the series. The big happy surprise isn't even a particularly big surprise. It's the sort of clunky mess of a superhero film you'd expect from the genre before Singer's original X-Man paved the way. Talk about slamming on the breaks and going full reverse.