I saw “X-Men: Apocalypse” at the movies yesterday and loved it. Before going for the movie I had a headache; by the time I came out I was a cured man. :)
I feel conscious saying I enjoyed “X-Men: Apocalypse” because most reviews I chanced upon seem to hate it. They don’t like its villain, or the themes, the continuity with other X-Men movies, it’s plot, etc – but I liked it, and probably for these same reasons really (except the continuity mess-up).
It was such a relief watching “X-Men: Apocalypse” after all these complicated superhero movies like “Batman vs. Superman” or “Captain America: Civil War”. None of this heroes fighting heroes stuff – particularly for not much reason – none of this gray area-ness or questions of right & wrong and morals and whatnot. Just a simple straight-forward good vs bad superhero movie – wow, I missed those!
Most superhero movies try to be dark and realistic nowadays, inspired by “The Dark Knight”. I loved “The Dark Knight” – probably my favorite super hero movie of all – but that too was more or less clear in terms of sides. Batman was good, Joker was bad, but Joker’s reasons for being bad was the cool deal as was the way he went about being bad. But there was no question in your head of choosing sides or any other issues. Simple.
I wish “X-Men: Apocalypse” didn’t bring in Wolverine to confuse the timeline, but apart from that niggle it was good. I guess the best way to ignore that niggle is to ignore the Wolverine movies altogether – which is easily done as the two Wolverine movies have not much continuity between them anyways!
I liked the villain Apocalypse. There have been comments of him focusing too much on dressing up or not being menacing enough – that didn’t bother me much. Yes he was dressed all grandly, but he’s from the Egyptian civilization era and they were grandly dressed back then so that’s just how he is. He was not menacing enough – I don’t know, I enjoyed watching him. The plot made sense to me as did what Apocalypse wanted. The ending was a bit of a we-need-to-destroy-him-somehow-so-the-movie-can-conclude, but that’s fine too – we get to see Phoenix and her introduction makes sense with the ending.
I enjoyed the opening sequence that introduced Apocalypse. I enjoyed the title credits. I enjoyed QuickSilver and his amazing sequence. I enjoyed most of the plot. Professor Xavier going bald didn’t make sense :) but then what the heck, he had to go bald eventually and this seemed like a good place. I enjoyed Jean the subtle hint/ reference to Phoenix (without saying the name but just through the imagery). The amount of destruction in the end was a bit over the top and and repetitive (like every other mass destruction movie sequence you have seen), but you can’t call a movie Apocalypse and not have some apocalyptic stuff happening.
So yeah – that’s it I guess. I loved “X-Men: Apocalypse”. A simple old-fashioned superhero movie. Good heroes vs Bad villains. No other drama. :)