May 25, 2016

X-Men : Apocalypse (Fan ramble)

I just caught the new X Men - Apocalypse movie and it was so good!  Like I've mentioned in my Captain America - Civil War blog entry, I hate reviewing shows so this will just be a fan rave. 

 

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As I've given away in the first sentence , the movie was absolutely awesome and I thoroughly enjoyed it even though some critics thought otherwise. In fact, it is probably the only movie of recent to receive a 10/10 badge from me. While I enjoyed watching the cartoon as a kid, I never got around to actually finishing every episode and while I've caught pretty much every X-Men movies till date - I won't claim to be anything more than a casual movie go-er. And my opinions are just as such. 

 

The movie started with a classroom scene are we are soon introduced to the would-be Cyclops ; Scott Summers. Scott's powers emerged without his control in the school toilet and he was soon taken to the Xavier's School for Mutants by his brother ; Alex Summers aka Havok. I always thought Cyclops was boring and overly archetypal so it's nice to see a rebellious and teenage side of him in this installment. It's also nice that despite being new, he was actively involved in the fight. 

 

 

Also, Quicksilver did his magic again! If not for the fact that I've already seen this clip, I would never have guessed quicksilver could save the day like this. Even though the critics felt it no longer conjure the magic it used to have, I still think quicksilver's scene was very fun and enjoyable. Not to mention how visually spectacular it is. Strangely Quicksilver seemed to have aged - or should I say matured too much within these few years. I know it’s been 10 years (movie timeline) since the events of the last movie but … Evan Peters, what happened ;(? 

I never have and still don't really like Jennifer Lawrence's Mystique. Probably overshadowed by Rebecca Romjin's sexy and mysterious portrayal of mystique. Like what another review said, Jennifer Lawrence's mystique felt just like Katniss with powers. And mystique's overwhelming sense of righteousness in this episode somehow just doesn’t sit right with me even though it helped push the plot ahead. Also, I just found out Jennifer Lawrence is dating the actor of Beast ; Nicholas Hoult. No wonder there were so much implied romance in the movie which I never noticed in previous movies before. I never saw Beast and Mystique as an item really.  

One thing I really liked was the even distribution of screen time for each character. Of course, not everyone is important enough to be considered the main team but the movie did well in surprising me at certain parts. 

Like allowing Professor X to jump into the conscious of En Sabah Nur when the situation was dire. I was really expecting Magneto to safe the day there but the scenarists wisely decided otherwise. Subsequently introducing Jean into the fight was also unexpected for me. A part of me felt like that should probably have been done earlier but then again, if the Red Phoenix appeared in the beginning there wouldn't be any story to continue right? Oh well. 

Since we're on the scene of the consciousness battle - I got to give credits to the CGI team and the visual director for making the whole transition from conscious to the world and back so seamless! It would have been a flop if it wasn't spectacularly executed and ended up losing the audience. 

I agree with the critics that the villain in this instalment is just .... forgettable and even cringe worthy. I was expecting more from Psyche Lock and Angel but that didn't pull through at all. Their lines and screen time was not just short but lacklusting too. Storm was my favourite X-Men when I was a kid but I’m actually glad they didn’t waste too much time on the 4 horsemen and instead, focused on telling the story of the apocalypse.

 

Oh and James McAvoy just grows into you as Professor X in this movie. I didn’t particularly thought that he looked or felt the part in the previous movies but he did here. And he looks so darn good without hair! That’s surprising!

The battle scenes were just glorious! The cgi team did an amazing job through out, making the fights along with the story and characters so believable and breath taking. 

While some of my friends who caught the movie with me felt the movie was overrate and overly cliche , I honestly can't wait to watch this again! I agree that the plot of a singular villain with a plan for destruction and world dominance is painfully overused but with a title like "Apocalypse ", can you blame them? 

Have you watched the movie already? Comment and share your opinion of it with me ! 

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