X-Men: Apocalypse Mini Review
This is a crowded, stuffed, and fairly standard superhero movie, but there's also a sense that franchise director Bryan Singer knows what he's doing, and the film is entertaining for what it is. It's as fun as always to see the wide variety of Mutants fighting it out with their wise variety of powers. This time, however, the filmmakers may have gone just a bit overboard, as there are way too many characters to keep track of. Not so hard if you've followed the franchise and the comics, but I can see how it may seem like too much if you're not too familiar. After Captain America: Civil War and now this, I'm starting to think that maybe Marvel films are getting a bit too crowded for their own good. Almost makes you long for the early Spider-Man films, where there was just one hero and villain to keep track of.
The plot isn't anything groundbreaking. Professor Xavier (James Mcavoy) and his team of heroic X-Men must once again save the world from danger. This time, the danger comes from Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac), an ancient Mutant from early Egyptian history, who was seen as a god back in the day. Now he's been awakened from a few thousand years slumber, and is assembling an army of fellow Mutants to conquer mankind. Some of the members of Apocalypse's forces will seem familiar to fans of the series, as this film is set earlier in the time line of the overall franchise, and shows how they got involved. All of this leads to a lot of world-shattering battles that is well done, but seem a bit overpowering as they drag on. The movie is nearly two and a half hours long, and could have used some editing. There's also a subplot for returning antihero Magneto (Michael Fassbender), about how he is trying to lead a normal and peaceful life, but circumstances keep on getting in the way and turning him to violence. This is potentially interesting, and Fassbender gets some good moments playing the conflicted nature of the character. Still, his plot and character does get kind of get drowned out by all the special effects and action.
Now, I don't want to stress only the negatives, as X-Men: Apocalypse is an entertaining film, and I enjoyed catching up with the characters. It simply cannot be ignored that the franchise may be getting too crowded and overstuffed for its own good. Should there be another sequel (and there no doubt will be), hopefully they can at least focus a bit more on just a small handful of characters, instead of trying to squeeze in as many characters and references to the comic in order to make the fans in the audience happy. The movie made me smile a number of times, and I had fun. But in the back of my mind, I couldn't help but think there was just too much going on here.
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