X-Men: Apocalypse

I didn't expect that. So many good moments and actors drowned in such a bland story... And also directed by Bryan Singer. If only he'd made a standalone movie with the (totally awesome) Weapon X instead of this hastily cobbled together sequel that shouldn't even be compared to the first two or Days of Future Past..... Oh dear. The villain sucks, the plot has almost no overlap and the relationships between the characters are hardly interesting (yet that's what I've always enjoyed most about X-Men) and the whole thing is mostly a parade of gimmicks interspersed with something worth mentioning here and there. I was downright bored by the multi-destructive ending, and I'm actually disappointed to the point of being angry at how they managed to dilute the already diluted X-Men cinematic universe even more. (05/19/2016)

The last instalment, which was about alternative pasts, realities, futures and future pasts including the past future, annoyed me so much that I didn’t even feel like watching the next instalment called Apocalypse. I was discouraged by the fact that the whole universe around the X-Men is awfully asymmetrical and has no logic in it. In addition, the two-and-a-half-hour footage is also not easy to swallow. Especially since when hearing the word X-Men, I currently think of a number of swear words. Nevertheless, I gave Apocalypse a chance and I must admit that I was very pleasantly surprised. While the director does not bother with the logic of the story and feeds the audience with one nonsense after another, it does no harm to the relatively simple premise, and at least it allows the individual characters to develop, which is nice. There is a significant number of them. I consider the scene where Quicksilver saves the whole academy in slow motion to be the highlight of the movie. It was truly flawless, and it was then that I realize that this instalment is not actually bad at all. Until then, I was quite undecided, because this film definitely doesn’t interest you with the story. And that’s the whole point. In the end, I realized that I was not into the story at all, but rather into the individual characters, which really surprised me and pleased me at the same time. Finally something from the comic book world that I care about. Let’s just hope that they won’t disappoint the next time, as my feelings after X-Men: First Class were pretty similar… (04/07/2017)

Let's face it: this movie isn't very good, but then again, I wasn't bored. Granted it had scenes where I'm not sitting in the cinema but at the PC, so I'm stomping them because their bullshit was unlistenable; on the other hand, it had a scene I'd like to see again, which of course is the one with the great music and the "express train". There's not much to say about the acting, the actors didn't really stand out, the story was kind of rubbish, but the music managed to draw you in. It's a heavy middling film that surprisingly didn't bore me too much; I only had to roll my eyes about three times. :-D Get over how illogical it was that a bunch of Polish workers could speak English (since we're on location and speaking a foreign language, let's play it to the hilt!), or that one randomly shot ordinary arrow (which wouldn't have a metal tip!) kills two birds with one stone, and it's a nice movie for an evening when you come home from work and just want to be entertained. 55%. (05/19/2016)

I have a soft spot for the X-Men, after all, they showed how to confidently make comic book adaptations, managing to make them smart and ambitious, stripping them of the label of children's entertainment. They've always been smarter, had better fleshed out characters, and didn’t care about black and white. That is, until recently, because X-Men: Apocalypse is a step backwards in everything I listed above. And a hell of a big one. The sixth X-Men movie feels like something that was made in the late 90s, a time when it wasn't the norm to have characters dealing with a crisis of faith (like Nightcrawler in X-Men 2), drawing on the political situation of the 70s (Days of Future Past), or wondering if mutation was a disease or evolution (more or less the entire original trilogy). Now we have a blue idiot who wants to destroy the world for his ego, and that's it. Bryan Singer and his team seem to have ditched what has always been their strength and made a generic blockbuster for a lot of money. Unfortunately, the director's action sequences never work as well as the character work, he doesn't quite master the digital effects either, and he's got a bunch of characters that are either underused or completely unnecessary. In the end, it turned out to be a mediocre quarter-billion dollar movie. Personally, I'm used to more from this franchise. A lot more. (05/15/2017)

Still good, the catastrophe announced by the first reviews does not occur. Or rather, it occurs, but in a good sense...if you get my drift. :) The blue clown doesn’t command much respect and his super powers aren’t clearly defined (which is a shame) so he uses whatever power he wants when he wants. But any dramatic scene with Fassbender or McAvoy is always by far the best. Apocalypse is a picture about destruction and again about the strength of unity. I’m not sure what direction the creators want to move with this concept because in this movie they largely repeat themselves. I’m beginning to feel my age. I have a feeling that I saw some parts of the subplots somewhere long ago... I was very pleased with the Weapon X program, identical to the comic book. We’re already looking forward to good old Wolvie. (05/21/2016)