Marvel May - X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)

         Hey guys, Chuck here, and we're taking a look at Bryan Singer's follow up to 2014's X-Men: Days of Future Past: 2016's X-Men: Apocalypse. Based on the "Age of Apocalypse" storyline from the comics, this movie sees the return of First Class cast members James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Rose Byrne, and Lucas Till, as well as both Evan Peters and Josh Helman from Days of Future Past, with newcomers including Tye Sheridan, Alexandra Shipp, Kodi Smitt-McPhee, Lana Condor, Sophie Turner, Ben Hardy, Olivia Munn, and Oscar Isaac. 

       The movie opens in Ancient Egypt, where a powerful mutant named En Sabah Nur, accompanied by his lieutenants known as the Four Horsemen, is taken to a pyramid to partake in a transference ceremony, where his entire consciousness is transferred into a new body, with the mutant selected being one who has a rapid healing ability. During the transference, the guards betray En Sabah Nur and attempt to destroy him before the transference is complete. However, the transference is complete, and his body armor is also moved onto the new body. His Horsemen die, but the last one protects him from being crushed by falling stone from above, entombing him alive. 

        After the opening credits, we cut to an American high school in the year 1983, ten years after the events of Days of Future Past, where a history class is being taught about the events in both Paris and Washington DC. One student, Scott Summers, is unfortunately having eye problems and is allowed to go to the restroom. One jock, who mistakingly thought Scott was winking at the jock's girlfriend, follows him to kick his ass, but ends up knocked down when Scott's eyes unleash violent energy blasts, knocking the door off its hinges with much force. In Germany, Raven, who is seen as a hero after she saved Nixon and Trask, finds herself at an underground fight club, where Warren Worthington III/Angel, is in an electrified cage fighting a frightened Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler. Raven overloads the fences, causing a power blowout, which allows her and Kurt to safely escape, but Angel's wing is damaged from the electricity. 

         In Poland, Erik Lensherr is living a quiet life, with his wife, Magda, and their daughter Nina. Erik, who has left his past behind him, is working in a steel mill and is happy with his family in a small house in the woods. Back in America, Alex returns to the Summers household, where his parents tell him about Scott's incident, and Alex drives Scott to the Xavier School in Westchester, New York. Alex reunites with both Hank McCoy and Professor Charles Xavier, who are now working together to run the school in the Xavier Mansion. After a demonstration of his abilities, Scott is formally enrolled at the Xavier School, where he meets and befriends fellow students Jean Grey and Jubilation Lee. Yes, in spite of her having minor appearances as a student in the original trilogy of X-Men movies, X-Men: Apocalypse gives a proper live-action version of fan-favorite character Jubilee, and Lana Condor does an excellent job despite being a supporting character. Also, Hank makes special glasses for Scott made of Ruby Quartz, which allows Scott to see and hold back his optic blasts. 

       In Egypt, CIA agent Moira MacTaggert follow some men to a ruined cave, where they are revealed to be cultists worshipping En Sabah Nur, and their chanting reawakens him, sending a shockwave across the globe, which affects both the steel mill in Poland, where Erik uses his powers to save a co-worker, and Jean Grey's mind, where her telepathic and telekinetic powers starts to act up because of the wave. Charles, after checking on Jean, then goes to investigate the incident using Cerebro, and learns that Moira was there when whatever happened took place. So, Charles and Alex head to Moira's office at the CIA to talk with her. 

        Erik, who had been identified because of his actions, is forced to pack up his family and flee from their home. Unfortunately, local authorities arrive to arrest Erik, but Nina starts to show signs of having mutant powers, and a stray arrow pierces through Magda, killing both her and Nina. Erik, heartbroken and angry, uses the locket he gave his daughter to kill the officers. Back in Germany, Raven and Kurt go to a black market mutant named Caliban to get Kurt somewhere else. However, after getting some news on Erik, Raven takes Kurt to the Xavier Mansion, where she reunites with Hank, Alex, Moira, and Charles. Scott, meanwhile, convinces Jubilee and Jean to join him in taking Kurt to the mall, giving him the experience of hanging out at the mall. 

        En Sabah Nur, meanwhile, meets a teenage mutant in Cairo named Ororo Munroe/Storm, and after using his powers to absorb information (and the ability to speak English) through the television, realizes what happened since his betrayal, and gives Storm a power boost, making her the first of his new Horsemen. Later, En Sabah Nur and Storm head to Germany, where they recruit Caliban's aide Psylocke, who leads them to Angel. Both Psylocke and Angel are given a power boost, with Angel's wings being made into metal. Erik, meanwhile, goes to get back at his former co-workers in retribution for the death of his family, and when En Sabah Nur arrives, Erik looks at him and asks "Who the fuck are you?". En Sabah Nur then gets rid of the mill workers, and he takes Erik to the remains of Auschwitz. En Sabah Nur then shows Erik how to move the metal within the Earth itself, and as Erik uses his power to destroy what's left of Auschwitz, En Sabah Nur proclaims "Everything they've built with fall! And from the ashes of their world, we'll build a better one!" 

           Back in America, we cut to the Maximoff house, where Peter watches the news about Erik, and his mother warns him to be careful in his pursuit of Erik, which leads Peter to the Xavier Mansion. Speaking of which, Charles uses Cerebro to reach Erik and convince him to come back to the Mansion for help. En Sabah Nur, meanwhile, senses Charles through Cerebro and takes his mind over, causing every nation on Earth to fire their nuclear arsenal straight up into space, making yet another proclamation: "You can fire your arrows from the Tower of Babel, but you can NEVER STRIKE GOD!!!" Charles then tells Alex to use his powers to destroy Cerebro, telling him to "Wreak havoc." With Cerebro destroyed, En Sabah Nur and his new Four Horsemen (Erik, Psylocke, Storm, and Angel) arrive to kidnap Charles, and Alex tries to stop them. Unfortunately, his blast hits an exposed engine on the X-Jet, causing a massive explosion. Peter arrives and, to the tune of the song "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" by Eurythmics, saves everyone from the exploding Mansion... except for Alex, who died in the blast. Military men arrive, led by Col. William Stryker, and knock everyone out, taking Peter, Hank, Moira, and Raven, with Scott, Kurt, and Jean sneaking onto one of the helicopters. 

      It's here where we see the Weapon X facility at Alkali Lake. Col. Stryker asks where Charles was, but to no avail. Across the world, En Sabah Nur has Charles communicate with every mind on the planet with a message from En Sabah Nur. However, Charles also secretly sends a message to Jean at the same time, and changes the end of the message, instructing those "with the greatest power" to "protect those without." Jean, realizing what needs to happen, rallies Kurt and Scott to break the others out, so they can all work together to save Charles. On the way, they unleash Weapon X himself: Wolverine. Yep, Hugh Jackman makes a cameo in this movie as Logan, this time with the Adamantium skeleton and claws, plus all of the comics accurate Weapon X gear. This was Bryan Singer showing the fans a glimpse of the Weapon X escape from the comics, and it's awesome. Anyway, Jean unlocks a past of Logan's past, his name, and he removes the Weapon X gear and runs off into the wilderness of Canada. 

       Anyway, Kurt, Scott, and Jean break Raven, Hank, Moira, and Peter out, and they all suit up in flight suit and take off in a hypersonic jet Stryker had in the facility. Meanwhile, En Sabah Nur begins to build a massive new pyramid, gives Erik a new helmet, and has him rip the world apart with his magnetic powers. Charles, meanwhile, has a key role for En Sabah Nur, which is to be his new vessel. Yes, En Sabah Nur plans to perform another Transference, with Charles as his new body. The Transference causes Charles to lose all of his hair, but luckily he is rescued before the Transference is completed. Yep, the X-Men have arrived to stop En Sabah Nur and save Charles, with Raven and Peter trying to reach out to Erik to get him to help them instead of En Sabah Nur. Psylocke, Angel, and Storm also fight off the X-Men, with Kurt saving Charles. Unfortunately, things go sideways, as En Sabah Nur awakens and goes on a rampage to reclaim Charles, who is still mentally linked to him. Realizing this, Charles proceeds to fight En Sabah Nur in the Psychic Plane, which is awesome, by the way, and Charles tells Jean to unleash her full power, which destroys En Sabah Nur in the Psychic Plane, but not yet in the real world, where he tries to escape a barrage from Jean, Erik, and Scott, but Storm help the X-Men, and as he is destroyed, En Sabah Nur says "All is revealed." Charles restores Moira's memories of the events of First Class, admitting he was wrong for taking them. 

         Working together, Jean and Erik rebuild the Xavier Mansion, and the school is rebuilt with Kurt, Peter, and Storm joining as new students. In the sublevels of the Mansion, Erik and Charles have a friendly farewell, and Raven and Kurt begin working to train Kurt, Peter, Storm, Scott, and Jean in the Danger Room... against the Mark I Sentinels, ending the movie with Raven telling them "You're not kids anymore. You're not students. You're X-Men." 

         Now, while this movie was a disappointment coming off of the excellence that was Days of Future Past, Apocalypse wasn't quite as bad as everyone makes it out to be. The idea of following one of the most beloved X-Men stories by adapting another of the most beloved X-Men stories, "Age of Apocalypse," was going to be complicated. But, for the most part, director Bryan Singer and writer Simon Kinberg did an acceptable job in telling this story. Also, it was great hearing John Ottman's score for what would be his last time working on an X-Men movie. 

      Of course, the returning cast members all do really well. James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, and Nicholas Hoult all get plenty to do throughout the movie, and are all fantastic. Rose Byrne's return as Moira MacTaggert was definitely welcome, and she definitely gets lots to do in this movie. Lucas Till as Alex is also a welcome returning character, and you can tell that there's still that Bond between Alex, Hank, and Charles. However, despite getting more screen time compared to Days of Future Past, Alex's one key role is introducing his younger brother, Scott, to this new era of the X-Men franchise. Speaking of which, Tye Sheridan does an excellent job as the teenage Scott, and the same goes for Sophie Turner as Jean, Kodi Smitt-McPhee as Kurt, and Alexandra Shipp as Storm. I also liked Lana Condor as Jubilee, and while she's only a supporting character, at least she does stuff in the movie. So, there's that. Also, despite not having much of a character, I did enjoy seeing Ben Hardy as Angel, especially with the metallic wings. 

       Oscar Isaac did really well as En Sabah Nur/Apocalypse. And, while his suit design got tons of flak from the fans, the comic book version of his suit was pretty damn ridiculous to begin with. Another character whose costume got criticized was that of Psylocke. Now, I will defend this for one major reason. Even dating back to her time as co-host of Attack of the Show! on G4, Olivia Munn has been an avid cosplayer, and is a huge fan of the character from the comics. Ergo, is stands to reason that Olivia Munn would make damn sure that her version of Psylocke was in her comics accurate costume, despite how out of place it might have looked in the movie. As a cosplayer myself, I strive to make sure things look as close to the real deal as possible. Okay? Cool. 

        The setting of the 1980's is pretty cool, especially with the wardrobe, set design, and the nods to movies like Return of the Jedi, which we see Kurt, Jubilee, Scott, and Jean walking out of a screening of in the movie. Nice. Also, with the music choices like an Arabic version of "(I Ran) So Far Away" by Flock of Seagulls and the aforementioned "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)," the eighties are everywhere in this movie. And this was just a few months before Stranger Things had its debut on Netflix and took the world by storm. Hell, this movie even had Ally Sheedy, an eighties icon from such films as WarGames and The Breakfast Club as the high school history teacher at the beginning of the movie. Nice touch. 

        Now, do I think this is a good movie? Not quite. Do I hate it? No. Is it worse than The Last Stand or Origins: Wolverine? Definitely not. As it stands, Bryan Singer's final X-Men movie was a middle-of-the-road movie. So, I'm giving X-Men: Apocalypse a rating of 3.95/5. 

       Alrighty guys, this is Chuck signing off. Join me on Sunday as we continue Marvel May, and wrap up Hugh Jackman's tenure in the Fox-era X-Men franchise with Logan.