X-Men Apocalypse has all that you need in a superhero movie: lots of action between the good guys and the bad guys. Overall, the movie is a great movie if you are an X-Men fan. There are some easter eggs in the movie that will only noticed by those viewers who are familiar with the comics. Moviegoers who are not familiar with the comics can still enjoy the movie. It not only has some great action, it has wonderful acting and great effects.
The only villainous character is Apocalypse himself. As the main villain and title character of the movie, he is really well-developed. We see his backstory in the prologue of the film. His four horseman as they are called – Magneto, Psylocke, Storm and Angel – only join with him because they feel they have nowhere else to turn. Apocalypse is very persuasive and good at showing these four characters that he can give them what they want – to be who they are.
For example, Magneto makes a great life for himself after the events of Days of Future Past. This includes getting married and having a daughter. But when his wife and daughter are killed by police who have found out that he is Magneto, he feels like his life falls apart. His anger comes back. In comes Apocalypse to show him how to get his vengeance on this whole world. He does this by taking Magneto back to the concentration camp he was in as a child. This brings back Magneto’s anger even more as well as his desire for vengeance against the human race. I thought this was filmed very well. The special effects in this film are top-notch and don’t take away from the acting.
While this film has good action sequences and effects, the downside is that there are too many characters. As a result, some of the characters don’t get fully developed due to time limits. For example, we never see Jubilee use her powers. This also happened in the other X-Men movie that Jubilee was in (X2: X-Men United). It would’ve been great to actually see her powers on film this time around. The other main mutants in the film all had their chance.
We also don’t get much backstory on Psylocke. We only see her working for Caliban until Apocalypse meets up with her. Plus, where does Psylocke go at the end of the movie? She doesn’t join up with the X-Men like Storm does. It would’ve been good to get an explanation of where Psylocke went after the climactic battle, but there was no time. Overall, the movie is packed with too many characters.
One of the best parts of the movie is when Quicksilver used his powers to rescue the students from the X-Mansion. Again, the special effects here are excellent. The camera work is spectacular. I really felt like I was in this time loop (I don’t know what else to call it) with Quicksilver. This was easily one of the funniest parts of the film as well with all the antics that Quicksilver got up to while he was rescuing the students.
In summary, this is an excellent film to see in a dark movie theater and get lost in for two and a half hours. As I’ve stated before, the special effects are excellent, new characters like Scott Summers (Cyclops), Jean Grey and Storm are well-developed, and the overall story is good. So, while you may not get the chance to know all the characters in the movie due to its over crowdedness, it’s still worth spending the money to see.
