X-Men: Apocalypse: The Good and the Bad

X-Men: Apocalypse officially kicks off tonight, but yesterday saw advanced screenings take place, which I was privy to.

Currently at Rotten Tomatoes, X-Men: Apocalypse is considered “rotten” with only 47% of the ratings positive. 

Audiences listed are giving it a 74% positive rating, so there is a pretty wide gap.

Speaking of the gap, I’ve been traversing the internet checking out fan reaction (reddit is blowing up here), and I think reactions are based on expectations: For example, I went in with low expectations (wasn’t a fan of Days of Future Past or The Wolverine), so I pretty much enjoyed X-Men: Apocalypse; however, if you happen to be a die-hard X-Men fan, this movie probably comes off as disappointing.

So let’s take a look at the good and the bad of X-Men: Apocalypse (Spoilers follow):

The Good:

Opening scene: First Four Horseman: I loved the opening scene set in the past with Apocalypse and his original Four Horseman — those guys were bad ass! The scene got pretty graphic, too, which took me by surprise. The music was pretty epic adding to Apocalypse’s “godlike” presence. Hey, Fox! Can you release the names of the characters and actors! Off to a good start!

Quicksilver: We all recall that first look image of Evan Peters as Quicksilver in X-Men: Days Of Future Past — we all hated it! However, once we saw Quicksilver on screen, the character quickly (no pun intended!) became a fan-favorite and stole the show. Quicksilver steals the show once again in X-Men: Apocalypse. He has by far the best scenes and best written dialogue. How about a spinoff movie? 

Psylocke: Olivia Munn was bad a– as well! The look and feel of the character was pretty much straight out of the comics, something which Munn wanted to remain true to. Definitely worked! Another character deserving of a spinoff movie.

Jean Grey: I’m a fan of Sophie Turner. I dig her in Game of Thrones and felt she played a good enough Jean Grey. What was pretty awesome was when they revealed the Phoenix at the end! Now that was cool to see and might lead into the next X-Men, movie, which may be set in space.

Stan Lee: Always good to see Stan Lee on screen, and this cameo happened to be very special to him because it also featured his wife. Very nice! 

Wolverine: I loved the Wolverine scene, it was straight out of the Weapon X comics. We know Hugh Jackman’s time is counting down, so including him with the Berseker Rage was pretty awesome. Thank you!

The Bad:

Visual effects were pretty much crap (guessing this movie is a disaster in 3D).

In my opinion, there is absolutely no excuse for Oscar Isaac to look as bad as he did as Apocalypse. NONE. Especially when they already had a costume designer working on the movie who came up with the exact look out of the comics! But they didn’t use it! This just screams that Fox is too cheap to do the character justice, and it came out as so. The special effects for the rest of the movie were sub bar, IMO, as well. 

We could have had this:

But got:

Apocalypse: In addition to the crappy visual effects, his power base was pretty disappointing. The guy acquired thousands of mutant powers, but uses less than a half dozen? Laughable.

New Four Horseman: Storm and Apocalypse show up to Caliban and ask him to find the most powerful mutants. Psylocke steps in and says she knows them, etc. Off to Angel we go. Angel? Huh? He’s one of the most powerful? Again, missed opportunity to create “Archangel.” Angel was probably the most disappointing character in the movie. I felt they needed to transform Angel, like in the comics, to Archangel, which I felt they didn’t come close to. I also felt Magneto becoming a Four Horseman was a waste: We knew he was going to become a good guy. Again. I felt Kinberg and Singer played it too safe with these characters (probably because they’re all basically “good” guys). They didn’t even compare to the original Four Horsemen listed above. Meh.

Lamest character in the movie? 

Jubilee: The mall scene was cut from the movie for whatever reason, but hey, instead we probably got a bunch more of the Michael Bay-esque explosions, right? The mall scene featured the Dazzler Easter Egg and Jubilee using her powers. Bryan Singer said in an interview he wanted more of Jubilee — well, dude, you’re the director, give her some more screen time, then! Hello! The good news is that the scene will be in the Blu-Ray.

Psylocke: She goes on both lists because the bad is that she didn’t get enough screen time!

Danger Room scene: Another big time missed opportunity!! Mystique is the new team leader (or whatever) and we see the Danger Room unfold. Then we see — Sentinels?! The crappy Sentinels from Days of Future Past! Ughhh!! LOL! How epic would it have been if they showed the Sentinels from the comics! Instead, Singer uses his crappy version that is cousins with the Dyson vacuum cleaner. More piss-poor special effects from these guys! Inexcusable!

We hate this:

Love this:

Post-Credit scene: Haven’t these guys learned anything from Marvel Studios? You go out with a BANG! not a whimper. The post-credit scene revealed the involvement of Essex Corp, which we are to presume is Mr. Sinister; however, I felt like the reason they revealed so little is because they aren’t sure what’s next. I thought it was rather lackluster and lame.

On the Fence:

Havok’s death: Is he really dead? With Mr. Sinister teased, it’s possible Havok may have somehow survived. 

Mystique: Hey, it’s Jennifer Lawrence, so she has to be the leader of the movie, right?

Anything I missed? Let me know in the comments below.