X-Men: Apocalypse reaction post
May. 27th, 2016 08:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessI saw this a couple of nights ago. There was a problem that meant no adverts or trailers, no nothing, but we got the film all right. I thought there were meant to be two credit tags, but I only spotted the one after all the credits had passed.
I enjoyed this a lot while it was on. I thought it, overall, managed the scale of the threat and the cast, the continual rebooting and knowing callbacks to previous films well. Yes, there were moments of longeur and a few characters were not sufficiently attended to throughout (hi, baby!Storm) among the cast of dozens, but after not being that thrilled about the Rogue Cut of DofP...I was pleasantly surprised. I am left legitimately excited about Singer taking on Phoenix/Dark Phoenix in the nineties.
It started off with MacAvoy channelling Stewart’s Xavier in voice-over and with some Apocalypse-related Ancient Eqyptian mumbo-jumbo, which isn’t what I expect from my X-Men movies, but by the time we went into Scott’s origin story (hurrah, we can rewrite X-Men Origins: Wolverine, although I do still hope that the escaped Logan found a nice Canadian couple and their bike, cos that bit was quite good and I'd probably put that movie in my list of favourite X-Men movie than some) the film had got going.
I really liked the baby X-Men, most of all baby!Storm as a sort of mutant Artful Dodger – so cool! – who hero-worshipped Mystique – SO COOL! Her Apocalypsed costume was less cool and the fact that she just stood there for a significant portion of the film after starting to look dubious about Apocalypse who had, after all, ‘amplified’ her without her say-so. Baby!Kurt was charming, as if they’d kept all the charm of X2!Kurt while de-ageing him, and his interaction with Mystique made my heart soar. And, to my surprise and delight, I liked baby!Jean and Scott, too. I liked their edges, that Scott was a bit brash and cocky once he’d got the glasses, that Jean was the freak among the freaks, affecting to be cool and remote because of it, flailing with her powers until she wasn’t.
Given everything (and from the XMDoFP: RC commentary the film-makers thought that Wolverine/Jean in the old continuity was this great epic thing, which, no, it wasn’t) I thought the moment between baby!Jean and Logan went as well as it could. It gave them as touching a connection as possible and made it about her powers.
Meanwhile, in Scott she found a friend and maybe more, certainly someone to understand overwhelming powers. And she was directing operations quite as much as he was. And she was another Mystique fan.
But it really worked as a response to the ‘find them’ of the last film to have the kids be a greater presence, and to see this lot in callower mode. I kept thinking ‘steep learning curve’ as the trio followed the grown-ups to Alkali Lake.
Apocalypse was an effective, even better than that, villain. Really (like most 12As) not a film for sensitive kids. I mean, I was sad that they covered Oscar Isaac’s face, but the scale of the baddie worked, even if his first Avenger status undercuts the Atomic Age theory of XMFC and raises quite a few questions that can only be answered by the fact that they're adapting different comic runs. You basically have to take what they give you and handwave the rest.
But I liked the XMFC call-backs in particular. As I’ve said, I’m glad we got more Alex than in the last film, even if he had to (presumably) die and Moira turning up was another surprise for me. Sadly, we didn’t get a response from her to learning that Charles had wiped her memory (yeah, yeah, she was CIA, but it was mostly personal and very arrogant) and at least he apologised. I am amused that by letting the light in, she animated Apocalypse. MacAvoy was very droll over the Charles/Moira.
Apocalypse made Charles look slightly more ethical (my theory is that at the end of DofP he did enough of a number on Erik to allow him to settle with Magda and beget Nina) and I say this still basking in post-DOFP sympathy with him. I really liked the relationship with Jean (although sitting on her bed? Different times) – apart from the time he lied to her and patronised her over her vision, which was not helpful. But he did turn, rightly to her, to help deal with Apocalypse psychically. And along with Apocalypse recognising the Phoenix, my read was that Moira and the CIA knew about Jean from something she said to Stryker.
Also Xavier's look was spot-on for the eighties and for finally getting to the iconic bald head.
Poor Erik. (On a shallow note, my eyes enjoyed every second Fassbender was onscreen. As for my ears, I’d hoped we’d return to Erik speaking foreign languages and we got Polish. Granted, you have to assume that at some point Erik was in Ireland, because it’s present in his English). Although it was obvious what would happen to his wife and his Francis of Assissi daughter, it was effective – the forest scene and even the return to Auchwitz, because he’d lost the next link of his family chain. They certainly explained why he was willing to become one of Apocalypse’s horsemen, which I’d wondered about.
I was a little disappointed in Mystique’s storyline. I didn’t feel that her refusal to be in blue because she didn’t want to be mutants’ poster girl (except it was awesome that she was for mutant girls) made sense in the story. She wasn’t choosing to be Raven (I think it had more to do with JLaw not wanting to be in the make-up) and yet she walked around looking like her. But the way that she had to deal with the ramifications of DofP was good. I thought she’d be more central, perhaps, and it’s getting a bit ridiculous that she keeps on having intense connections with these guys once a decade.
On the ageing front, of course, with Mystique, she doesn’t look older, but Lawrence did a good job of conveying the weight of what Raven has lived through (you have to handwave what's going on with all the other adults who appeared in XMFC).
Hank may have come to terms with what he and Mystique are a bit more, but I only fourth place ship them, so I’m glad the romance wasn’t pushed harder. While I was delighted that Mystique decided to stay and help build the X-Men (DANGER ROOM!), for the future, I could see JLaw easily dropping off. She’s too big for the part she’s got in this franchise – maybe she could cameo - and I say that as someone who thought her character was the soul of the reboot, but I can imagine that getting blued up every day is exhausting. Storywise, apart from finding out he has kids, Magneto coming back would probably lead to a retread for the character emotionally – at least he doesn’t seem to be likely to use his amplified powers to kill humans after all this, but Singer and the studio need to beg MacAvoy to stay, as Xavier is so central, if they’re thinking of bringing on the kids (and giving Ororo, AT LEAST, more to do).
We also got some more Quicksilver, and he was fine, but the Sweet Dreams scene was self-indulgent in terms of length and trying to recreate the XMDOFP glory. I mean, he was a hero with a mischievous touch, so it wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t as fresh. I liked the effect of him starting to get some hits in on Apocalypse, though. As for the father-son stuff with Magneto, I am jaded about that dynamic, and doesn’t Erik have enough knowledge to have an inkling? So, keep Quicksilver around for the zippy powers, but not the angst.
We also got the X-Jet, the suits, Jubilee – I wanted more Jubilee. Psylocke should return and maybe we can have a little more of her in future in another cozzie.
Yes, there were moments where the pacing dropped and the action scenes were of varying quality – sometimes the answer isn’t more characters and more CGI, like that gold liquid of eh. I’ve read some reviews with valid criticisms, and some of the shine has come off the initial high a couple of days after seeing it, but this reboot has a lot of charm and accumulated affection so it gets away with the too meta by half diatribe on third films in a trilogy and outright quoting of some past films while erasing others. I suppose I was feeling something similar, overall, after seeing DoFP in the cinemas, though.
I enjoyed this a lot while it was on. I thought it, overall, managed the scale of the threat and the cast, the continual rebooting and knowing callbacks to previous films well. Yes, there were moments of longeur and a few characters were not sufficiently attended to throughout (hi, baby!Storm) among the cast of dozens, but after not being that thrilled about the Rogue Cut of DofP...I was pleasantly surprised. I am left legitimately excited about Singer taking on Phoenix/Dark Phoenix in the nineties.
It started off with MacAvoy channelling Stewart’s Xavier in voice-over and with some Apocalypse-related Ancient Eqyptian mumbo-jumbo, which isn’t what I expect from my X-Men movies, but by the time we went into Scott’s origin story (hurrah, we can rewrite X-Men Origins: Wolverine, although I do still hope that the escaped Logan found a nice Canadian couple and their bike, cos that bit was quite good and I'd probably put that movie in my list of favourite X-Men movie than some) the film had got going.
I really liked the baby X-Men, most of all baby!Storm as a sort of mutant Artful Dodger – so cool! – who hero-worshipped Mystique – SO COOL! Her Apocalypsed costume was less cool and the fact that she just stood there for a significant portion of the film after starting to look dubious about Apocalypse who had, after all, ‘amplified’ her without her say-so. Baby!Kurt was charming, as if they’d kept all the charm of X2!Kurt while de-ageing him, and his interaction with Mystique made my heart soar. And, to my surprise and delight, I liked baby!Jean and Scott, too. I liked their edges, that Scott was a bit brash and cocky once he’d got the glasses, that Jean was the freak among the freaks, affecting to be cool and remote because of it, flailing with her powers until she wasn’t.
Given everything (and from the XMDoFP: RC commentary the film-makers thought that Wolverine/Jean in the old continuity was this great epic thing, which, no, it wasn’t) I thought the moment between baby!Jean and Logan went as well as it could. It gave them as touching a connection as possible and made it about her powers.
Meanwhile, in Scott she found a friend and maybe more, certainly someone to understand overwhelming powers. And she was directing operations quite as much as he was. And she was another Mystique fan.
But it really worked as a response to the ‘find them’ of the last film to have the kids be a greater presence, and to see this lot in callower mode. I kept thinking ‘steep learning curve’ as the trio followed the grown-ups to Alkali Lake.
Apocalypse was an effective, even better than that, villain. Really (like most 12As) not a film for sensitive kids. I mean, I was sad that they covered Oscar Isaac’s face, but the scale of the baddie worked, even if his first Avenger status undercuts the Atomic Age theory of XMFC and raises quite a few questions that can only be answered by the fact that they're adapting different comic runs. You basically have to take what they give you and handwave the rest.
But I liked the XMFC call-backs in particular. As I’ve said, I’m glad we got more Alex than in the last film, even if he had to (presumably) die and Moira turning up was another surprise for me. Sadly, we didn’t get a response from her to learning that Charles had wiped her memory (yeah, yeah, she was CIA, but it was mostly personal and very arrogant) and at least he apologised. I am amused that by letting the light in, she animated Apocalypse. MacAvoy was very droll over the Charles/Moira.
Apocalypse made Charles look slightly more ethical (my theory is that at the end of DofP he did enough of a number on Erik to allow him to settle with Magda and beget Nina) and I say this still basking in post-DOFP sympathy with him. I really liked the relationship with Jean (although sitting on her bed? Different times) – apart from the time he lied to her and patronised her over her vision, which was not helpful. But he did turn, rightly to her, to help deal with Apocalypse psychically. And along with Apocalypse recognising the Phoenix, my read was that Moira and the CIA knew about Jean from something she said to Stryker.
Also Xavier's look was spot-on for the eighties and for finally getting to the iconic bald head.
Poor Erik. (On a shallow note, my eyes enjoyed every second Fassbender was onscreen. As for my ears, I’d hoped we’d return to Erik speaking foreign languages and we got Polish. Granted, you have to assume that at some point Erik was in Ireland, because it’s present in his English). Although it was obvious what would happen to his wife and his Francis of Assissi daughter, it was effective – the forest scene and even the return to Auchwitz, because he’d lost the next link of his family chain. They certainly explained why he was willing to become one of Apocalypse’s horsemen, which I’d wondered about.
I was a little disappointed in Mystique’s storyline. I didn’t feel that her refusal to be in blue because she didn’t want to be mutants’ poster girl (except it was awesome that she was for mutant girls) made sense in the story. She wasn’t choosing to be Raven (I think it had more to do with JLaw not wanting to be in the make-up) and yet she walked around looking like her. But the way that she had to deal with the ramifications of DofP was good. I thought she’d be more central, perhaps, and it’s getting a bit ridiculous that she keeps on having intense connections with these guys once a decade.
On the ageing front, of course, with Mystique, she doesn’t look older, but Lawrence did a good job of conveying the weight of what Raven has lived through (you have to handwave what's going on with all the other adults who appeared in XMFC).
Hank may have come to terms with what he and Mystique are a bit more, but I only fourth place ship them, so I’m glad the romance wasn’t pushed harder. While I was delighted that Mystique decided to stay and help build the X-Men (DANGER ROOM!), for the future, I could see JLaw easily dropping off. She’s too big for the part she’s got in this franchise – maybe she could cameo - and I say that as someone who thought her character was the soul of the reboot, but I can imagine that getting blued up every day is exhausting. Storywise, apart from finding out he has kids, Magneto coming back would probably lead to a retread for the character emotionally – at least he doesn’t seem to be likely to use his amplified powers to kill humans after all this, but Singer and the studio need to beg MacAvoy to stay, as Xavier is so central, if they’re thinking of bringing on the kids (and giving Ororo, AT LEAST, more to do).
We also got some more Quicksilver, and he was fine, but the Sweet Dreams scene was self-indulgent in terms of length and trying to recreate the XMDOFP glory. I mean, he was a hero with a mischievous touch, so it wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t as fresh. I liked the effect of him starting to get some hits in on Apocalypse, though. As for the father-son stuff with Magneto, I am jaded about that dynamic, and doesn’t Erik have enough knowledge to have an inkling? So, keep Quicksilver around for the zippy powers, but not the angst.
We also got the X-Jet, the suits, Jubilee – I wanted more Jubilee. Psylocke should return and maybe we can have a little more of her in future in another cozzie.
Yes, there were moments where the pacing dropped and the action scenes were of varying quality – sometimes the answer isn’t more characters and more CGI, like that gold liquid of eh. I’ve read some reviews with valid criticisms, and some of the shine has come off the initial high a couple of days after seeing it, but this reboot has a lot of charm and accumulated affection so it gets away with the too meta by half diatribe on third films in a trilogy and outright quoting of some past films while erasing others. I suppose I was feeling something similar, overall, after seeing DoFP in the cinemas, though.
