X-Men Apocalypse: continued

[Denvek]

So Phoenix is back, and Apocalypse appears to have Phalanx technology. Looks like the rumours out there about the next ensemble film going cosmic have some legs.

[Crazydog7]

While it was the weakest of the new films (to many characters not enough time) it was still infinity better then Last Stand and the Wolverine Films.  

[Howdyphillip]

29 minutes ago, red snow said:

I think wiping out everyone as a solution to "Never again" is the definition of overkill. Did he think mutants would all magically survive his extinction level event? I wasn't even convinced he'd survive it - and suicide (with everyone else drawn in) seemed more plausible.

 It was stated that those with mutant powers who survived would start a new world. This is also the same motivation the character had when he tried to nuke the planet in the comic books.

[red snow]

3 hours ago, Howdyphillip said:

 It was stated that those with mutant powers who survived would start a new world. This is also the same motivation the character had when he tried to nuke the planet in the comic books.

What percentage of mutants would have powers that allowed them to survive the destruction caused by magneto tearing the planet apart by its magnetic poles? I'm pretty sure it would be as damaging for mutants as it was for humans. But I guess those who survived - along with the humans woudl have to start a new world. Not sure if it would be a better one.

The comics have tried every iteration of the character by this point and he has been a fanatical terrorist there. It doesn't really excuse the movie version - especially when this isn't even a reboot. Magneto and Storm's behaviour would fit perfectly into Tony Stark's "nuclear weapons with mood swings" stance. People with that kind of power need to be controlled.

MAgneto clearly knows a mutant with the power of PR to come out of the film as some kind of hero. Because it's essentially thanking someone for deciding not to destroy the world. I know comparisons to other films always get shot down but it would be like Ultron being hailed as a hero for deciding not to level sokovia or Galactus taking a few bites out of the earth and saying "I'm not hungry anymore" and leaving only for us all to say "Good on Galactus for sparing us"

 

[The Mother of The Others]

has Singer ever been directly asked what his deal is with changing sentinels so they're not really sentinels anymore but something else, and why Apocalypse doesn't look like what everyone paid to see.  Everything being slightly off-brand seems to be what gets this guy off.   I wonder if it's a money thing, like he can say these aren't entirely Marvel intellectual properties anymore because he's shared in "creating" the movie versions, so maybe he shares in some kind of ongoing rights or revenue stream, or gets more say, leverage, something.  Just wants to leave a personal legacy on screen instead of knowing to stay invisible and let the original artwork be what's brought to life and not his SInger-boinked hybrid concepts.   I think it's a fetish thing with him.   "Yes, I screwed up another thing everyone was expecting so that they didn't get to see what they wanted, because it's not theirs anymore, it's MINE, I put my stink all over this project, yes!"

[sifth]

On 5/28/2016 at 9:25 PM, Ramsay Blow said:

Just saw it and it was basically what I expected it to be. I just wanted it to end and it seemed like it never would. Quicksilver was the highlight again and some decent action scenes, I guess. I'm beating a dead horse(that's been dead for months) but I couldn't get over the way Apocalypse looked everytime he was on screen...just wtf. I'm sure everything's been said already on here...mehh.

Oh, Sophie Turner was awful too. 

How was Sophie Turner's American accent?

I've heard some people say she couldn't pull it off and was British for half the film, I was just wondering if this was true.

[Howdyphillip]

42 minutes ago, sifth said:

How was Sophie Turner's American accent?

I've heard some people say she couldn't pull it off and was British for half the film, I was just wondering if this was true.

It wasn't as horrible as people have made it out to be. If anything, it swung a bit from Midwest to east coast at times. I personally think her Jean Grey was a highlight of the film. I'd like to see her do more work with the character.

[Bastard of Boston]

I think, when it comes to Sophie's accent, people just anticipate the British, so it's informing their opinion of whether her American accent is effective. When you know someone is hiding something, you listen intently for it. She didn't break. If anything, you could only argue she over-enunciated at times. It wasn't that jarring to me. I thought she performed as well as most of the other cast. I found 99% of them to be catatonic at times.

[Ramsay B.]

While Sophie's accent might've sounded a little odd at times I was referring more to her just being an emotionless robot...or catatonic as mentioned above. 

[Spring Bass]

She'd slip occasionally, but it wasn't terrible. 

So, thoughts

Spoiler

First third was great, remaining two-thirds had some pacing issues - every scene seemed to run just a bit too long, draining out the tension from it. It took too long to stop Apocalypse from almost hijacking Charles' body, too long for Apocalypse to go down to Jean Grey (although her scene where she goes full phoenix power and wipes the floor with him was fucking awesome). 

The whole thing with Magneto's family coming on-screen only to be killed worked for me, maybe because Fassbender sold it well. I was more annoyed that they went with Magneto being like "Oops, I guess Mystique is being killed, time to change sides" instead of what his family dying and Quicksilver's appearance seemed to be leading up to: Quicksilver telling Magneto about his parentage, and Magneto deciding that he can't let another child of his die. 

Apocalypse was better at actually coming across as frightening than Ultron in Avengers 2, but he still just didn't feel that threatening. I think it's the make-up - he just looks so cheesy in that getup, like a cousin of Mr. Freeze from the Schumacher Batman film. I wish he looked more "god-like". 

Good action scenes, but the final fights felt . . . small, somehow. Maybe it's because they were fighting in a desert city that was totally abandoned, so the whole thing felt kind of weird. 

Ugh, that whole sequence with Stryker, the base, and Wolverine. Not a bad scene, but it just felt like such a pointless waste of time set in this particular film. Why was it even necessary, when Jean was going to find out where Charles was anyways when he does the Mind Message to the World? Oh, right, because apparently they wanted to set up the "Weapon X" thing for the millionth Wolverine movie. 

 

[Fiddler]

Just came back from seeing this and had some thoughts.

It wasn't a terrible movie, but I wouldn't call it a good movie.  Like Batman V Superman before it, I thought it had some good parts and some good characters, but in the end fell very short.

Spoiler

Mansion rescue was great.  Brought the humor and really showed how awesome Quicksilver was.  I also liked the answer to the question of "why doesn't quicksilver just handle the problem".  

The weapon X scene was great.   Wolvie going ham on Striker's guys was awesome and leads right into the original X men.

That was pretty much it though.  I liked some of the actors they got for the characters, even Jean and cyclops, but overall the movie just fell flat on its bluish face (which makes me wonder why the mutant gene likes blue so much).

 

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

 

In then end I am left shaking my head.  How do they take the X-men franchise and turn it into this.  They need to lessen the scope of the movies.  Make them smaller in scale and show a smaller group of x-men dealing with learning to control their powers and dealing with the discrimination.  Something that I don't feel any of the movies have dealt with well.

Overall give us less actual characters and fully flesh those characters out.  

[red snow]

20 hours ago, The Mother of The Others said:

has Singer ever been directly asked what his deal is with changing sentinels so they're not really sentinels anymore but something else, and why Apocalypse doesn't look like what everyone paid to see.  Everything being slightly off-brand seems to be what gets this guy off.   I wonder if it's a money thing, like he can say these aren't entirely Marvel intellectual properties anymore because he's shared in "creating" the movie versions, so maybe he shares in some kind of ongoing rights or revenue stream, or gets more say, leverage, something.  Just wants to leave a personal legacy on screen instead of knowing to stay invisible and let the original artwork be what's brought to life and not his SInger-boinked hybrid concepts.   I think it's a fetish thing with him.   "Yes, I screwed up another thing everyone was expecting so that they didn't get to see what they wanted, because it's not theirs anymore, it's MINE, I put my stink all over this project, yes!"

It's a classic case of creators wanting to make things their own. He can't just do classic sentinels because then people would say he was just transcribing Jack Kirby's design. It's annoying but it's fairly common. Everyone hates Snyder but he's usually pretty faithful in visuals of whichever comic he's doing (being loyal to the characters is debatable post MOS).

At some point I do tend to think "make your own superhero movie if you're so insecure" but even the comics do it.

In his defense the uniforms at the very end of the film were excellent. It only took 6 films!

[Corvinus85]

I liked it, but not that much. I don't think this movie merits repeat re-watches, unlike its two predecessors. So far out of the superhero movies this year, I would put it at #3, well behind Deadpool and Civil War, but just ahead of BvS.

I was glad that I went in with fairly low expectations, expectation which were lowered even further when the actress who plays Storm came on screen prior to the start of the movie to basically beg the audience to like the movie.

 

 

 

Apocalypse wasn't a bad villain, he was suitably threatening, just not that imposing. And I liked that he did not waste time in attempting to destroy the world. As soon as he had control of Xavier and Cerebro, he launched all the nuclear weapons. But he made some poor choices for his 4 horsemen. Four characters, but one was not like the others. I am talking about Psylocke. What a worthless character. Angel wasn't much better, but at least he died.

But on Psylocke - the other three were lost souls; one filled with rage, another scrounging a living out of petty theft, the third diminished and depressive; I can see why Apocalypse would recruit them. But Psylocke is just a bit power hungry, and with limited powers. Speaking of her powers, how is it that she can cut through metal and concrete like it was butter, but she can't cut Beast's skin? I now find it funny that Olivia Munn turned down the role of Deadpool's girlfriend, because she didn't just want to be "the girl", so instead she took the role of thug #2.

Sophie Turner as Jean Grey was pretty bland, never mind the accent. I wasn't too impressed with young Cyclops either, but I think for both characters, their older counterparts, Famke Janssen and James Marsden, just did better with these roles.

While I would not have minded to see Wolverine take part in this conflict, re-hashing his escape from Striker's base was a waste of time. I kinda feel the same about Moira, though her presence did do something for Xavier.

I liked Magneto's scenes, too bad that Quicksilver didn't reveal he was his son, and Magneto use that as the final reason to turn against Apocalypse. Also liked Quicksilver, once again. And the scene with the house blowing up made me chuckle, as I remembered Colossus in Deadpool going "house blowing up builds character."

Also liked that Xavier had a more involved role this time, rather than just be the support guy for everyone. His mind battle with Apocalypse was one of the better moments, I thought.

I have to ask, does Singer no longer consider his first two X-Men movies part of the continuing movie canon? Because between this one and DoFP, I have to conclude that the franchise essentially got a reboot with First Class. Sure, we got to see part of Wolverine's origin again, but we also got Nightcrawler, who in X2 was a complete unknown to both Jean and Storm. And Singer sure loves to take jabs at The Last Stand (erased from the timeline completelely in DoFP), and now just a reminder how much that one sucked with Jean Grey's line. Of course, if my conclusion about the franchise is correct, then this would have been the third movie in that continuity. Just sayin' 

 

 

 

[Igziabeher]

I just got back from seeing it.  Probably my least favorite of the new trilogy.  The beginning was good, the end was okay, just the middle seemed to drag.  I think the Alkali Lake part was completely unnecessary.  

Can someone tell me what the post credits scene was in spoiler tags?  I was too antsy from sitting thru the movie to wait another 10 minutes thru the long credits.

[Martini Sigil]

Saw it today.... I liked Sophie's Jean...

I think that when FOX decides they like (can market) a character.... Wolverine, Mystique, and now Quicksilver.... they really, really overdo it with them.

[AndrewJ]

5 hours ago, Igziabeher said:

Can someone tell me what the post credits scene was in spoiler tags?  I was too antsy from sitting thru the movie to wait another 10 minutes thru the long credits.

Some guy in a suit goes into the Weapon X facility and recovers a vial of Wolverine's blood. Those that know the comics say the name of the company shown on his briefcase indicate a link to Mr Sinister. (I forget the name of the company - I never read the comics. Something like "Excelsior", but I don't think that's quite right.)

[red snow]

I read an article about the possibility of Singer taking a break from X-men to do direct something different. He'd still be involved as a producer. Probably hedging their bets - although I think Nolan benefitted from being able to do different films in between his Batman ones.

The cruel irony would be if he missed out on the chance of doing Dark Phoenix again. Surely he'd insist on being around for that?

I think letting another director have a crack at the film might be a good idea. I think they really need someone working on a script that makes better use of the villain or makes the protagonists so amazing we don't notice the villains.

[dbunting]

Saw this yesterday and agree with most of you, it was a popcorn summer action movie. Nothing special, some good parts but mostly forgettable. I liked the Quicksilver action scene the most, but even it dragged on just a little long. Didn't see a reason for the Alkalie lake special guest except to set up another movie. Also, was it just me or did half of Jean Greys scenes basically involve her staring at or past the camera with different emotions?

Is this the 3rd movie with this group? If so, nice reference to the 3rd movie always being the worst and nice shout out to Return of the Jedi.

And the thing before the movie, with Storm, that was strange as hell.

[The BlackBear]

So not really sure where to stick this but Legion has been picked up by FX: http://screenrant.com/legion-x-men-fx-series-order/

You will be relieved to know, they're not doing the hair. I think this has potential, and not just because of my borderline unhealthy obsession with Aubrey Plaza. Deadpool didn't suffer from having a smaller cast, smaller budget and more creative freedom. Most of the criticisms of the X-Men films seem to be that they've grown too large, so a smaller more character driven piece with the time to tell a story is a nice prospect.

[red snow]

6 hours ago, The BlackBear said:

So not really sure where to stick this but Legion has been picked up by FX: http://screenrant.com/legion-x-men-fx-series-order/

You will be relieved to know, they're not doing the hair. I think this has potential, and not just because of my borderline unhealthy obsession with Aubrey Plaza. Deadpool didn't suffer from having a smaller cast, smaller budget and more creative freedom. Most of the criticisms of the X-Men films seem to be that they've grown too large, so a smaller more character driven piece with the time to tell a story is a nice prospect.

Looking forward to this. I don't know how heavily involved Fargo's Noah Hawley is but it can only be a good thing. I'm already taking for granted that the continuity will be utterly fucked up though if it is connected to the films.