X-Men: Apocalypse

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)

Days of Future Past was already a harbinger of future total shit and incomprehensible creative decline, and, unfortunately, Age of Apocalypse is full of that. All the things we loved about the X-Men – the characters, the relationships, the connection to reality – are missing here and have been replaced by the classic comic-book elements of Marvel: a CGI mess and a constant change of locations that is supposed to evoke a sort of build-up of the plot. There are only a few really good scenes that will resonate though – primarily almost everything with Fassbender and a minute of Wolverine, unless you count Jennifer Lawrence in a sexy purple costume, or a few nice visual effects that just copy what we've seen better/more sparingly used in previous episodes. The gamble on youth didn't pay off and neither did the super villain, who, surprisingly, wants to destroy the world – something we haven’t seen yet. (09/11/2016)

A gift for Bryan Singer. After contributing to the series with origin, key work, and crossover, the situation finally arises where he can rampage carelessly, break free from the chain, and simply shoot a pure team comic book. I knew from the announcement of the storyline that it wouldn't be routine, but that it would be one of the highlights of the entire universe, and I'm still breathless a day after seeing it. It's not just a clash with an unbeatable enemy, but also the way the heroes themselves are incorporated into it. There's no need to develop them because we've spent six movies with some of them and know what to expect from them. Magneto's next attempt to exit the scene, Raven's inability to cope with herself and with mutants as such, or the newly developing juniors portrayed by Scott and Jean are still storylines that complete the already perfect cocktail of characters and motifs. And when you add Quicksilver, the visit to Lake Alkali, or the astral confrontation of the strongest wills, X-Men: Apocalypse becomes the strongest superhero film at least of this year. (05/29/2016)

A film without charisma. It doesn't bore or annoy, but everything that takes place in it is, in keeping with the more intimate psychological feel of its predecessors, simply a screw-up. Nobody expected such a big story cliché and an absolute inclination towards the digitally overstuffed Snyder manuscript from Singer, and the exhausted plot extensions in the form of introducing "new" recruits are not only detrimental to the dubiously tuned script, which completely lacks any attempt at emotionality or creating strong bonds between the characters, but also to the stars themselves, who don't get much space and, more importantly, don't get much to play with – yes, even Fassbender, whose performance is traditionally precise, of course, but the ambivalence of his character, until recently the main driving force of the saga, also feels like a thematic encore with a minimum shelf-life date of Future Past. And I'm afraid the whole series has been given the same label. It's nice to look at, the music is great, Jennifer Lawrence gets prettier with each film, and there's a pleasing room for humour represented once again by the delectable Quiksilver, but these just aren't the X-Men we like. (05/20/2016)

Seduced by visions of billion-dollar sales, the people at Fox applied a Marvel-esque concept, and the result is a director's genocide of his own children. It consists of rejuvenating detailed heroes with interchangeable faces and letting them fly thoughtlessly among digital backdrops. Yet Singer forgets about his main asset - strong characters - meaning that there is a complete lack of attachments, motivations, and, heaven forbid, tension. The viewer is thus left with a producer film that perfectly hits its target audience for a hundred and fifty minutes (it's not boring for even a second), but one that also sells its own soul (key moments are alternated from the past) and leaves the broken hearts of fans of what has laboriously redefined the comic book genre for sixteen years to die in agony. (05/18/2016)