By Brett Blake While a step down from its immediate predecessor, X-MEN: APOCALYPSE is far from the disaster the critical circles have suggested. Though certainly with a handful of flaws and missteps, the film is nevertheless a fun ride, boasting great chemistry between its cast members, and at least a couple of standout setpieces that are the best of the franchise so far. After an ancient Egypt-set prologue establishing the origins of En Sabah Nur (Oscar Isaac), also known as the titular Apocalypse and the first mutant to appear on the planet, the film throws us into 1983, where Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) runs his school for mutants in relative peace. Xavier is drawn back into the world of conflict when Apocalypse resurfaces, bent on world domination, and with Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto (Michael Fassbender) as a converted follower. With the help of Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) and a rather rag-tag group of young mutants, including Jean Grey (Sophie Turner), Cyclops (Tye Sheridan), Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee), and Quicksilver (Evan Peters), Professor X sets out to stop Apocalypse from destroying everything in his path and establishing a new world order. On a screenplay level, there’s a lot of stuff packed into X-MEN: APOCALYPSE. This turns out to be both a blessing and a curse. Most of the individual component parts are great, particularly the integration of all of the key characters (including even more central ones than I could fit into that brief synopsis!); the film takes the time to build relationships between the new characters (particularly Jean Grey, Cyclops, and Nightcrawler, whose friendship happens quickly but feels totally believable and earned) as well as service existing relationships that have been running throughout these films since 2011’s X-MEN: FIRST CLASS, such as the complex dynamic between Professor X, Magneto, and Mystique, and even Professor X’s cut-short involvement with CIA agent Moira Mactaggert (Rose Byrne), which pays off in some unexpected ways here. Additionally, the movie is packed to the brim with utterly sensational moments: Cyclops experiencing his powers for the first time, Moira on an undercover spy mission and stumbling upon the resurrection of Apocalypse, Xavier counseling a tormented Jean Grey, Magneto dealing with unimaginable loss and cathartically laying waste to Auschwitz while Apocalypse acts as the devil on his shoulder, Quicksilver coming to the rescue in a particularly dire situation (which is the very definition of a showstopping sequence; it’s spectacular, and tops his previous exploits in DAYS OF FUTURE PAST by a mile), and Jean Grey finally embracing her powers and unleashing them to their fullest potential. These are truly wonderful bits (and there are more!), sometimes fun and comic book-y, and sometimes intimate and deeply concerned with the human condition. All of that stuff is great. Where the “curse” element I spoke of comes into play is in relation to the rather undercooked scheme of the villain, Apocalypse, a side effect of the story trying to do too much without giving this piece its full due. What the character ultimately wants is, in his own words, a “cleansing” of the planet, but why and how he goes about it the way he does are rather murkily drawn by the script. We are told, for example, that Apocalypse has four followers (the Four Horsemen), but why? We are shown that the character has incredible powers, and we witness him literally wiping out an entire city at one point, so why does he need four people to help him? And why only four? Why not hundreds? The logistics and mechanics of his grand scheme in the third act are opaque, at best, and we are often left to wonder what he’s attempting to achieve on a specific level. We are shown destruction on a grand scale, but the narrative rationale for it is dodgy. None of this, however, is a slight against Oscar Isaac, because he’s great in the role; he doesn’t play for the cheap seats, he doesn’t go over the top, he delivers a genuine, for-real performance, one marked by a calculating intellect and an intriguingly soft-spoken delivery. It’s a movie full of fine performances (McAvoy and Fassbender deliver the emotional goods in a big way, Peters brings welcome comic relief, and Sheridan, Turner, and Smit-McPhee are incredibly likable), but Isaac’s is assuredly the most interesting of the bunch. Another flaw of the screenplay is that it takes us on a problematic detour to Alkali Lake (a location we’ve visited in something like four of the X-films so far), one which complicates the continuity of the franchise in a fairly major way only so that we can have a surprise guest star turn up for a couple of minutes. I’m skirting around spoilers, here, and those familiar with the comics lore will surely know the significance of Alkali Lake, but this section is troubling for the way it stops the movie dead and twists the chronology of the series into a pretzel just for a cameo appearance from a beloved character. There's one other issue, and it’s one I debated even bringing into this review - I’m, frankly, at a loss to explain exactly what Jennifer Lawrence is doing with her performance in this movie. I don’t really mean to single her out, but her work here is kind of baffling. Her indifference is absolutely palpable and striking, pouring off the screen in transparent waves which say to the audience, “I DO NOT WANT TO BE HERE!” This is, without question, the least-engaged performance I’ve seen her give, and not because she makes choices that are bad or undermine the story (and to be fair, the screenplay gives her next to nothing of value to work with; Mystique as a character could be lifted out the narrative and there would be few consequences), but because she so clearly just doesn’t care about her character or the movie. It would be almost brave to be so nakedly disengaged if it weren’t also sort of insulting to both the general audience and fans of the X-Men characters. These elements are hard to look beyond, but it’s not impossible. The movie has so much good stuff in it - including everything I’ve already mentioned, but also a sense of scope and spectacle on a level not seen before in the X-MEN films, and a sterling, grandiose musical score from John Ottman, whose material here (particularly for Apocalypse and Magneto) makes it the best of his three outings as composer for this franchise. I found it, flaws and all, to be completely entertaining, and certainly among the better half of movies in this series.
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