X-Men: Apocalypse

20th Century Fox

This is the third film in the “First Class” series, which finds us at a crossroads storytelling wise. While the previous X-Men film, “Days of Future Past,” cared more about wiping the slate clean and starting anew, this film tries to tie up loose ends and end on a solid note. There are no planned X-Men films in the seeable future so this is the last we will see of the Xavier school for some time. We do have a Wolverine film in the works, but honestly we’re all too burned out to care.

The film is arguably solid on story, effects, character work, and action, though it’s trying to be many films at once. First relating to old characters, the film soon veers into dull origin stories, and then finally we deal in the main villain. Our foe is Apocalypse, who was featured in the comics as the first mutant in existence, and had once survived for thousands of years by accruing other mutants’ powers and transferring to a new body when his own crumbled. The character has been in existence at Marvel since the eighties, and here is played by Oscar Isaac. While there are some great aspects to the character and his origins his view of the world is very black and white, which means this is a story of good and evil, with no grey in between. This hasn’t been a staple in superhero films since the grit of Nolan’s Batman films, and for good reason. Seeing the origins of Cyclops, Storm, Nightcrawler, and Jean Grey was a welcome addition to the already patchwork origin saga of the past two films, but made it all feel lopsided and already trod.

Because the original timeline is completely messed up there are a lot of questions for the next film including: Did Apocalypse create the hatred for mutants from humans seen in the original trilogy, and will this show up in the new timeline? Will Magneto’s hatred for humans and his want for mutants to take over the world stay in effect?  How did Wolverine get captured by Stryker after “Days of Future Past”? Where did Olivia Munn’s Psylocke go at the end of the battle? Also, now that The Phoenix has been awakened, are we going to get a Dark Phoenix storyline and film?

Currently this film is low rated and has a feeble box office compared to its predecessor. Casual filmgoers have not warmed to the obvious lip service to nostalgia and the Marvel fandom. Though the effects are tremendous and the emotional weight of certain characters’ paths makes for an enjoyable watch, it doesn’t have the oomph factor of the second film, or the ability to veer away from character set-ups and origin stories. If the film really wanted to work, it would have better focused on the heroes it had and casually introduced others. The film almost completely ignores some characters while overtly focusing on others who don’t warrant the time. Overall this is an enjoyable if troubling addition to the X-Men franchise.