"The third one is always the worst”
After the events of previous film, Days of Future Past, the X-men Movie Universe has hit the reset button. The films are now on a new continuity, so that means we can start over right? Let’s find out in my review of X-men: Apocalypse.
By the title, you can already tell that this revolves around Apocalypse, the supposedly first mutant ever. Wherever and whenever he was, he would end up being the ruler. After an incident during his time in ancient Egypt, he ended up in stasis. In the 80s X-men timeline, he has been awoken again, and it is up to them to stop him.
***Warning: Spoilers Ahead***
Apocalypse is so OP. Can someone tell me what his powers are, because they seem endless. He can manipulate mass, absorb other people’s powers, amplify other’s powers, absorb info from an antenna tv, and I guess he can control people through people that can see other people, I guess? What is the extent to this dudes powers?
Speaking of manipulating matter, he didn’t just build stuff like this, he used it to flat out decapitate and choke people out. He wasn’t the only one getting kill streaks, but Magneto jumped on board too, mass murdering several soldiers with a necklace. This movie was super violent.
Like the great Jubilee said, “The third was is always the worst.” When I speak of Jubilee, I’m talking about the one who is in the movie, but doesn’t do anything. This was one of my biggest problems, there were main characters that didn’t do anything. There was a lot of hype about Olivia Munn playing Psylocke, but when I look back at the film, she only does that slash through a building that was in the trailer. I feel there wasn’t that much development, because there were a ton of characters to reintroduce.
I was hoping that with the reset, they can start from scratch, but it does have its disadvantage. With a new timeline, we had to learn about so many new characters and tell longer stories about our favorite First Class Characters. Magneto has a new life, Hank and X are running the school, Mystique is hunting mutants, Cyclops and Jean Grey learn how to use their powers, Night Crawler and Angel are cage fighters, and the list keeps going and going. There was just way too much crammed into this already long movie. And aside the convoluted plot, it gets worst when you try to work this into the current timeline. Logan was sent back to the 2000s-ish era, but we pick back up in the 80s, so I was just overly confused on how the characters worked into the timeline.
With a convoluted and confusing package of characters and stories, this movie was definitely a tough watch for me. At the end of the day, it’s just another X-men movie. It doesn’t stand to Civil War, but I’d still prefer this to BvS. Maybe the controversial line that Jubilee says was referring to X3, but hey, this is technically the third movie in the First Class story. Watch this if you’re a fan of the X-men movies, but be prepared to be lost in the universe.