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X-Men Apocalypse: continued


Maltaran

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2 hours ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

I think you could actually have a lot of fun with Deadpool in an ensemble PG-13 film if you did it right. Have him freaking out in the background because he's being censored and he's the only one that notices. Of course, that would only be possible because the audience already knows his deal.

That's hilarious and I can totally see it. Like his screentime keeps being cut by the cameraman and director whenever he's in an acroon scene. Maybe he even secretly saves the day by wiping out a bunch of bad guys but no one knows because we were watching 13 year old Cyclops the whole time.

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Nice idea about Deadpool in an ensemble movie, but wouldn't work well in an X-men movie since X-men is rather earnest and low on humour, so it would be sorta out of place. Could work better in an Avengers movie since humour is baked in there, but ne'er the twain shall meet.

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5 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Nice idea about Deadpool in an ensemble movie, but wouldn't work well in an X-men movie since X-men is rather earnest and low on humour, so it would be sorta out of place. Could work better in an Avengers movie since humour is baked in there, but ne'er the twain shall meet.

Would definitely be better in Avengers but it's not the same universe because of the licensing.

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9 hours ago, WarGalley said:

 

I don't think they would have gone with a rated R movie first. They may be convinced now but even then I'm still doubtful. Most of these comics were made for kids. Which characters besides Wolverine and Deadpool would fit in a rated R movie? I'll assume Cable shows up in Deadpool 2 and Punisher is already getting a series that's pretty much going to be graphically violent. 

My bigger point is that Deadpool is Fox's only success. Outside of X2, I have been severely underwhelmed by pretty much every other X-men movie (and let's not talk about Fantastic 4). These people don't know what they're doing. They don't get the characters or the comics and I think Fox as a company doesn't have the culture to be successful. I've seen little improvement in their films across time. It took Ryan Reynolds quite a bit to get his version of Deadpool off the ground and I don't see anyone doing that for X-men.

I'm not sure I'll see Apocalypse in theaters (I haven't even seen Deadpool yet) and I don't want to unfairly bash a movie I haven't seen, but I am not hopeful for the future of this franchise.

I do agree that the X-men universe is large enough by itself such that we wouldn't need crossovers with Ant-man, Captain America, Spider-man etc. Genosha Island by itself could go multiple movies or a season long TV series.

 

I didn't mean "make all the films R rated" by "learning from Deadpool". I meant it more as "be true to the character and it'll work". While the Deadpool comics aren't R-rated it was a slight nudge but still very much loyal to the character. They made the FF a bunch or dour emo freaks instead of optimistic adventurenauts and it tanked (although I still think FF is tricky given the comics rarely resound either - they are great fun when they do though).

Wolverine should be a badass loner who isn't afraid to cut people up so r-rated would suit him. I'd like him in a noirish style to be honest.

Gambit is a charming thief so have him be like James Bond but stealing stuff (it sounds like the delays are addressing this). It doens't need to be R rated though. I get the impression Channing Tatum is quite invested in the character (or at least how he sees himself as the character) so it could work. Then again Hugh Jackman seems to love his character but he hasn't done a good job of getting his vision through even as a producer.  X-force probably should be R-rated (beacause I assume Deadpool would be in it) but it doesn't have to be. New mutants definitely shouldn't be R-rated.

I get the impression the franchise is as healthy as it's ever been. Fox may envy the Marvel box offices but they certainly aren't going to throw the towel in. If anything the X-franchise is more robust than MCU as it has had at least 2 critical/commercial flops and survived. We've yet to see whether the MCU can bounce back from a stinker (although I'd argue they've had some bad movies but they all do well commercially). It will be interesting to see what the box office is for Apocalypse as the franchise has been on a strong upward trend since First Class. If it makes less than DOFP there may be some course correction because it hasn't been reviewed as well and I'm guessing/hoping studios will think "we need to make it better to make more money".

they should definitely shared universe the franchise though and probably go for a mixture of MCU and DC approach. Build solo characters into an X-force film and expand on X-team characters with the "origin" or stand-alone films. Storm would be a great choice as she shows heroes don't have to be white male americans. But there's plenty of others - I'd say Gambit wasn't the best choice but that seems to be driven by a producer's love for Tatum. IT could still be fun though.

 

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I grew up reading Xmen in the late 80's / early 90's... it was mostly the Claremont era and for me Xmen can often be a deep, intelligent franchise, full of personal emotional drama and interesting characters. I'd say it was the characters and their relationships that was the main pull of it in fact, more than any amazing superpowers or big bosses.

I don't think the movies have really ever managed to convey any of that. They focus so heavily on some big issue or some grand fight that you don't really get much in the way of relationship building, or if they do its generally with characters I don't like.. like Mystique.

I really want to see more of Xavier and Magneto, I want to see Cyclops' relationship with Jean, with Logan.. I want old school Colossus and Kitty Pryde. 

I don't think I'll ever get the Xmen I was hoping for. There were glimpses in First Class, but that movie was a train wreck by the end, which is a massive shame,

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31 minutes ago, red snow said:

If anything the X-franchise is more robust than MCU as it has had at least 2 critical/commercial flops and survived.

Wait, what?

The MCU is currently the most robust entity on the face of the planet Earth. The reason we don't know how the MCU would deal with a commercial flop is because it's robust to the point of being failure proof at the moment. Remember that the X-franchise currently survives because it keeps doling out its big ensemble movies every other year. If it starting doing more standalone movies based on Colossus, Cyclops, Rogue, we'd quickly see how robust it really is. Whereas the MCU can do movies on freaking Background Extra #2 and still profit. If some of those standalone movies started flopping, Marvel would still have the backup route of doing what the X-franchise currently does, focus on its big characters and ensembles and start profiting again. But the MCU is so much more robust that they don't even have to do that at the moment.

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38 minutes ago, denstorebog said:

Wait, what?

The MCU is currently the most robust entity on the face of the planet Earth. The reason we don't know how the MCU would deal with a commercial flop is because it's robust to the point of being failure proof at the moment. Remember that the X-franchise currently survives because it keeps doling out its big ensemble movies every other year. If it starting doing more standalone movies based on Colossus, Cyclops, Rogue, we'd quickly see how robust it really is. Whereas the MCU can do movies on freaking Background Extra #2 and still profit. If some of those standalone movies started flopping, Marvel would still have the backup route of doing what the X-franchise currently does, focus on its big characters and ensembles and start profiting again. But the MCU is so much more robust that they don't even have to do that at the moment.

That they can barely get a Gambit movie off the ground suggests its not as robust as all that.

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1 hour ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

I really want to see more of Xavier and Magneto, I want to see Cyclops' relationship with Jean, with Logan.. I want old school Colossus and Kitty Pryde.

I think the chances of Fox focusing on a romance between a 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old crush are slim. ;)

Also, you haven't had enough Xavier/Magneto from the Fox films yet? How much more if that can they reasonably do?

But in general, you're right about the need to focus on the personal relationships - the key word being 'relationships', rather than 'drama'. You get to the latter from the former: if you just jump straight in with the drama, it feels hollow because there are no stakes. What makes the best X-Men stories work is that we care about the fate of the characters.

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3 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

I grew up reading Xmen in the late 80's / early 90's... it was mostly the Claremont era and for me Xmen can often be a deep, intelligent franchise, full of personal emotional drama and interesting characters. I'd say it was the characters and their relationships that was the main pull of it in fact, more than any amazing superpowers or big bosses.

I don't think the movies have really ever managed to convey any of that. They focus so heavily on some big issue or some grand fight that you don't really get much in the way of relationship building, or if they do its generally with characters I don't like.. like Mystique.

I really want to see more of Xavier and Magneto, I want to see Cyclops' relationship with Jean, with Logan.. I want old school Colossus and Kitty Pryde. 

I don't think I'll ever get the Xmen I was hoping for. There were glimpses in First Class, but that movie was a train wreck by the end, which is a massive shame,

In all fairness, with comics and tv shows you get some time for your characters to grow. The movie audience has even less patience than the tv one, so im guessing the directors and producers just didnt have the balls to slowly build up their characters.

They might think (however wrong that may be) "Sure the comicbook lovers will want depth, but the movie audience just wants to see shit blow up superhero style" even though X-men isnt a superhero comic in the traditional sense.

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3 hours ago, denstorebog said:

Wait, what?

The MCU is currently the most robust entity on the face of the planet Earth. The reason we don't know how the MCU would deal with a commercial flop is because it's robust to the point of being failure proof at the moment. Remember that the X-franchise currently survives because it keeps doling out its big ensemble movies every other year. If it starting doing more standalone movies based on Colossus, Cyclops, Rogue, we'd quickly see how robust it really is. Whereas the MCU can do movies on freaking Background Extra #2 and still profit. If some of those standalone movies started flopping, Marvel would still have the backup route of doing what the X-franchise currently does, focus on its big characters and ensembles and start profiting again. But the MCU is so much more robust that they don't even have to do that at the moment.

I take robust as something that can take a knock. The MCU has yet to do that which does show how successful it is. Batman is probably the most robust as he can bounce back from the most toxic of films.

I wasn't suggesting they do spin off films of every character - you've simply picked the ones that traditionally haven't even been solo players in the comics. Storm, Gambit, Wolverine, Magneto, Mystique (there was a good spy comic with her and it'd make use of LAwrence if she wants a solo film). Cable and Deadpool are technically solo characters so won't include them.

Then there's all the other teams which wouldn't be making a solo film but be more an addition to a franchise. I'm surprised they haven't tried to make the Madrox PI tv show.

We have a successful Ant-man film I don't see how they couldn't do the same with any of the characters I just mentioned.

 

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I saw the film today. I thought it was entertaining but it felt a bit unambitious and didn't really try to bring anything really new to the franchise. The one new thing is Apocalypse himself, but I found him to be an underwhelming villain, they've cast a good actor in Oscar Isaac and then seemingly buried his performance under ridiculous costume and make-up. Compared to Magneto in the previous X-Men films he's not a very interesting character, the better X-Men villains have had an existing connection with the heroes but Apocalypse seems almost disinterested in any other characters.

 

 

Speaking of Magneto, I liked the early scenes in the film with him trying to live a normal life and it all falling apart tragically but in the second half he felt a bit wasted as a sidekick to Apocalypse. Of the other horsemen I thought Storm was decent but the other two didn't get much character and Psylocke has a laughably ridiculous costume.

Quicksilver's big action scene did feel a bit like a scaled-up version of his signature scene from Days of Future Past, I think it was still a highlight of the film. It does reinforce the idea that his superpower is powerful that it could overshadow much of the rest of the team which wasn't a problem in this film but could be an issue going forward.

I liked the wordless Wolverine cameo. Admittedly, it's a rehash of a scene we've scene before in a previous film, but I liked the final moment with Jean helping him to remember his name.

I think the film has a generally good cast, but it felt there was maybe less character development than in the previous films. I think Fassbender in particular deserves an opportunity to do more, there have been occasional scenes through his three films showing how good he can be but he's often underused. The newcomers mostly did a decent job, I was sometimes a but unconvinced by her accent but other than that I thought Sophie Turner did a good job.

Overall I'd probably rate it about the middle of the X-Men films, behind the likes of X2 and Days of Future Past but still significantly ahead of X-Men 3 or X-Men Origins : Wolverine. Compared to the other two recent superheroes-fighting-each-other movies, it's less of a mess than Batman vs Superman but also noticeably less ambitious and I think Civil War was much better.

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I went into this thinking I'd like it better than the critics, but nope. This was bad. Almost none of the characters had a real arc, and the few that did had poorly written ones. Oscar Isaac was completely wasted as Apocalypse, and managed to never feel even slightly threatening despite supposedly being the most powerful mutant ever. His plan is kind of stupid and poorly executed. His horsemen were totally lifeless - one of them doesn't get any origin story or characterisation whatsoever and two others don't fare much better. None of them have any plausible motivation, instead doing whatever he plot requires them to. Things are a little better on the heroes side, but not much. TBH if I hadn't seen the previous two films I don't think I'd have felt anything whatsoever for any of the characters. Even the chemistry between McAvoy & Fassbender doesn't feel the same, though they do their best with bad material. Quicksilver has a cool scene again, and Kodi Smit-McPhee does a pretty good job with Nightcrawler. That's about it for positives though. The climactic battle is a mess of CGI and yelling, and it is boring. What a disappointment.

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2 hours ago, Kindly Old Man said:

. The climactic battle is a mess of CGI and yelling, and it is boring. What a disappointment.

And it is amazing how this single line is applicable to so many big movies of the last 5 years.

I know that sounds jaded, but it is so true.

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I saw the movie today, Sophie Turner was really the revelation and the star of the movie (like Wonder Woman or Faora Ul in superman movies), very good focus on Jean Grey, good story progression, good action scenes and special effects, very good acting from Fassbender, macAvoy and Turner, my only problem was with the remaining cast, they can't act for shit, especially Jennifer Lawrence, so dull and emotionless

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As an X-men fan since I was wee lad, I was compelled to watch this film.

The reviews were kinder than I am, this movie was shit. Way too many characters, the plot is boring, Oscar Isaac (one of my favourite actors) was wasted throughout it all. Once again we focus on Magneto's pain making him a bad guy, which is shit we've seen about a billion times now. This man does not need another catalyst to go bad.

Spoiler

Magneto does more damage in this film than in any other, yet he is easily forgiven in the end, GAG ME WITH A SPOON. Havok, who was never a fanfavourite and had pretty much zero development is here just to be killed and put Cyclops on the path to become a hero, how corny can you get?

Jennifer Lawrence was phoning it in, she showed the range of a botox victim and I was constantly wondering if the younger and hungrier actors were pissed about getting a fraction paid of what this zombie was getting.

I dont understand why Olivia Munn, who has shown that she CAN in fact act when given the right part, was cast to play somebody with about 5 lines, surely Singer and such could have hired a smaller name and put the money into something else.

Rose Byrne as Moira, see Olivia Munn.

I havent been this indifferent to an X-men film since Wolverine Origins.

 

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3 hours ago, Calibandar said:

And it is amazing how this single line is applicable to so many big movies of the last 5 years.

I know that sounds jaded, but it is so true.

Very true.

Sounds like they've done a poor job of getting the most out of the cast. Maybe Fassbender and MacAvoy deliver without much encouragement.

I wonder if Lawrence may under-perform because a) she probably signed a contract that means she gets paid far less than other work. b ) she isn't pushed by Singer

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22 minutes ago, Pliskin said:

I think I watched Ultron a second time (under a X-Men title). Singer just made the same movie, it's baffling. Why? Why?

Your av no longer makes me laugh:(

I agree with your view of this movie, though

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45 minutes ago, Red Tiger said:

Your av no longer makes me laugh:(

Yes, sorry, I seriously need to change it.

45 minutes ago, Red Tiger said:

I agree with your view of this movie, though

I can't understand why they would do that. I mean, I know they probably made a great deal of the movie before Ultron even came out, but... isn't Hollywood precisely known for going back after test screenings or producers' whims and changing things? So why didn't they just rework the whole goddam movie after the cold reception to Ultron?

Seriously, it's the exact same film.

Spoiler

A powerful (unbeatable) villain appears and forms a small team to help him destroy the world and build a new one. The said team of course betrays him in the end and joins the super heroes to eliminate him, after a big battle in a completely destroyed city. Zero story, epic scale destruction and battles.

WTF.

But I liked Jean Grey though. And QuickSilver was again worth the 8€ for his scene alone. So...

It's still better than Ultron overall. But I've always been biased towards the X-Men movies. Which doesn't seem to be the case on this thread :)

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