X-MEN: Apocalypse

For the most part, movie versions of comic book properties have largely avoided the convoluted continuity that’s always been (for me) the biggest barrier to reading comic books. With the ongoing success of the MCU, however - and to a lesser extent, Deadpool and Batman v Superman - we’re starting to see more and more characters forming larger and larger teams.

The X-MEN franchise's ownership by Fox means that (for now) Avengers crossovers are off the table - but there have been a LOT of X-Men over the years, and X-MEN: Apocalypse wants to play with them all.

To that end, it brings back most of the First Class/Days of Future Past roster (Xavier, Magneto, Mystique, Beast, Havok, Quicksilver), along with the titular Apocalypse; joining them are new versions of Cyclops, Jean Grey, Storm, Nightcrawler, and Angel, plus cinematic newcomers Psylocke, Jubilee, and Caliban.

Most of these characters have very little to do; aside from Magento, Apocalypse's horsemen serve the same basic function as set decoration.

Jubilee's entire contribution is taking Nightcrawler to the mall.

The actual plot, such as it is, deals with the reawakening of an ancient mutant, who is set on world domination (it’s always world domination). Exactly why he wants this, and what his plan is to achieve it, remains largely unexplained. In fact, even calling it a “plan” might be giving the script too much credit, given that most of what Apocalypse does is stand around trying to look imposing (a nigh-impossible task, given his costume), and anything he does do to further his “goal” is usually an unplanned reaction to an opportunity that presents itself deus ex machina.

Example: towards the end of the first act, Apocalypse launches the entire world’s stockpile of nuclear weapons into orbit. The film plays this as dangerous/tragic, but it's never a threat - essentially all he’s done is disarm all the world’s superpowers. Despite his grandiose speech a few scenes back about “destroying their world” and “building a better one” from the ashes (you’d think nuclear weapons would have gotten to the “destruction/ashes” stage of the plan a little faster, but no), he has no intention of actually employing the nukes himself.

Worse, however, is the ridiculously convoluted mechanism by which Apocalypse achieves this nuclear disarmament - he manages to telepathically control the launch technicians with Cerebro, via Xavier, who he's able to hijack using the Professor's mental link as he communicates with Magneto, who Apocalypse has just recruited as one of his Four Horsemen. The whole thing is just coincidence heaped upon coincidence.

But even despite every nuclear weapon on earth being taken off the table, and scenes and scenes and scenes of cities being destroyed, the whole thing feels lightweight and unthreatening - when you up the stakes this much, it just becomes a forgeone conclusion: the world didn't end in the 80s, of course the X-Men are going to win.

What doesn’t help is that we don’t know anyone - there are no character-scale stories in X-MEN: Apocalypse. There are character beats, but nobody has an arc. Jean probably comes closest, but even that really just boils down to another “hey, remember this from the comics?!?” moment.

Which, ultimately, is Apocalypse's biggest problem: far, far too much of the run time is spent on references, cameos, and winks to the audience - Hey, remember this guy? Check it out, Storm has her '80s mohawk look! - but there's not a single frame spent investing the audience in the larger world that's supposed to be under threat. The entire production operates under the assumption that recognising Psylocke is enough to make us care what’s happening.

It isn't.