X-men Age of Apocalypse

[Khaldun]

I sort of assumed they were going with a "ten rings" approach for the 'real' Mandarin, as per the hint in Iron Man 1. E.g., he's not one guy, he's ten people, a conspiratorial cell of some kind.

[Merusk]

The only other way to go is "mythic evil"--a kind of evil that's totally beyond the frame of human understanding and motivation. Age of Ultron flirted with that, but didn't really do it. If Darkseid is a JL villain in the future, I suppose that could work. But you can see how weak it is as a storytelling approach when you watch Thor: Dark World. Malekith is one of those mythic "force of nature" evils--he just wants to end creation because, I dunno, his people used to rule the universe or whatever. He's boring as a result, a kind of weak "I will have revenge for my people" combined with "there is a comet heading for Earth" sort of threat. There's no emotion in it, nothing to relate to or even hate, but also nothing of the grandeur of scale required to make him meaningful. I have a bad feeling that Thanos might end up the same way. 

I was thinking on this and realized why there's no emotion to it. You know that it's never going to happen. The good guys will always win, the bad guy will be defeated, even if it's not in this movie. Any downbeat is just a cliffhanger until the next. There's no stakes in play that can give you the the kind of terror a removed-from-humanity 'force of nature' evil should invoke.

To see that sort of pathos play in film, you need to look at good horror movies. The unrelenting otherness of a good, horrific villain. The terror of knowing you didn't really win, you just survived and not as the person you once were. That can't happen with tights-types. Certainly not on the back of a multi-billion-dollar franchise.  

[Evildrider]

I sort of assumed they were going with a "ten rings" approach for the 'real' Mandarin, as per the hint in Iron Man 1. E.g., he's not one guy, he's ten people, a conspiratorial cell of some kind.

The one-shot they made was to let us know there was a real Mandarin and he didn't like the whole impostor thing.

[Khaldun]

Sure, but that could be "they" didn't like the whole thing.

-------------

As far as "it's never going to happen", that was the brilliance of Grant Morrison's first Darkseid story--he took the JLA into the future to show what it would be like if Darkseid did come to Earth fully ready to conquer it, and managed to be convincing that it would be in a great many ways worse than anything any ordinary supervillain could conjure up. I don't think anybody, including Kirby, had really done that with the character or concept before. I actually think Snyder is sort of vaguely trying to do that in BvS but he utterly lacks the ability to pull it off. As I suspect Singer does as well in this upcoming X-Men flick.

[shiznitz]

Zod in Man of Steel was an excellent villain type. His motivation was personal and di not bear any direct animus towards humans. He was just the director of forces that would have extinguished humans as a side effect of his goals. This made him understandable without requiring audience sympathy.

[angry.bob]

Speaking of Darkseid, I need help finding one certain appearance of Darkseid. So in this appearance there's a bunch of heroes standing around at what looks like a picnic or something like that. THey notice one of the characters isn't around and they don't know where she went. This character was a girl 10-14 years old maybe and had some sort of superpowers. I vaguely remember everyone hating her as a new character and complaining that she was a some writer's daughter/waifu insert. Anyway, the heroes all scramble for a search party because a prepubescent girl is missing. Like two seconds later they find her behind some buches talking with Darkseid. It turns out she was sad because people were scared of her and treated her differently because of her powers. She just happened to run into Darkseid behind those bushes and not realizing who he was started talking to her. Darkseid told her that everyone else should FOAD, if they're weirded out by her it's their problem not hers. After talking to Darkseid she was much happier and all the heroes were like "WTF?". While everyone was standing around Darkseid took a boom tube someplace else, maybe a different bush someplace else. If anyone has any idea what book that was in you'll be solving one of the most haunting mysteries in my adult life. I'm almost to the point of getting a list of every Darkseid appearance after 1990 and looking at them one at a time.

Zod in Man of Steel was an excellent villain type. His motivation was personal and di not bear any direct animus towards humans. He was just the director of forces that would have extinguished humans as a side effect of his goals. This made him understandable without requiring audience sympathy.

I thought this was the one redeeming thing in The Fifth Wave. Liev Schreiber as the local leader of the invading alien force in his speech towards the end. "You guys didn't 'do' anything to deserve this except happen to live on a planet we want for ourselves." Otherwise everything else in it was pretty bad.

[Khaldun]

Racking my brains on the Darkseid thing. Can't think of where that's from. Almost sounds like the really bad Mary Sue character Faith, who appeared briefly in Justice League in the early 2000s, but I don't think there was a scene like that.

[Mac]

I went to go see this at the premiere (in an almost empty theater) and this was an enjoyable flick as far as X-Men movies can be enjoyable. It's reasonably long but I wasn't bored.

They could maybe have done a better job with Apocalypse himself and some actors were phoning it in (Lawrence) but on the whole I thought it was better than Days of Future Past, which I recently rewatched.

[Merusk]

That's somewhat encouraging at least. I enjoyed DOFP in the theater, though I haven't had the urge to rewatch.

[Merusk]

This was fairly mediocre. Apokalypse never felt threatening, just like a guy walking around with some gang. The story was too disjointed and suffered from having too many pieces on the board, you never cared about any of them except Magneto. Maybe a whiff for Jean & Scott but not much.


It's not one I'll rewatch on TV the way I have First Class. I don't regret spending a few hours this afternoon watching it, but I'd have been equally happy lazing about the house instead.

[Teleku]

Yeah, this movie is not getting very good reviews.  May not even bother going to see it.

A shame, since I thought DoFP was great.

[jgsugden]

On the bad side of mediocre for consistency with prior films (changing the time line should not change Angel's age), writing, and acting. A lot of phoning it in, especially from Lawrence. Too much fan service crammed into the movie. The spectacles were fun to watch, but they did not serve the story well. It could have been a lot better if they crammed in less and made more of what they kept.

[Shannow]

Ok so I actually enjoyed this movie. No hugely overdone action sequence in the middle (looking at you avengers 2) . Cpl of laughs. Sansa Stark being not always annoying.  Quicksilver bit was excellent as always.

[SurfD]

Yeah, the thing with Angel  kind of lost me a bit too.  And the fact that for what I assume was purely fanservice purposes Psylocke was the only one of the 4 horsemen that didnt get a set of Apocalypse brand custom body armor.   The rest of it was pretty decent, though I agree with the phoned in seeming acting.   Magneto's bit in the factory just after Apocalypse arrives literally made me wince.

Also, can anybody tell me exactly what was up with the End Credits scene?  I thought I was relatively familiar with most of the X-Men stuff,  but that one left me completely stumped.

[Sir T]

My sisters went to see it today and they thought it sucked. No more details.

[jgsugden]

End Credits More Info:

[Rendakor]

Saw it last night. It wasn't bad, but not great either. Way too much going on with too many characters, and unlike Shannow I think it could have used another action scene or two.

[Ginaz]

Saw it today and it was alright but nothing spectacular.  Like others have mentioned, JLaw seemed to have phoned in her performance while the rest of the cast ranged from forgettable (Cyclops) to OK (Jean Grey, Nightcrawler) to awesome (Quicksilver).  I really want them to make a movie with much, much more Quicksilver in it.   Something else I noticed was that they only gave Olivia Munn like 4 lines of dialogue as Psylocke with her then spending the rest of the movie standing around in her skimpy costume.  I wonder why that was?

[Merusk]

Because Psylocke is a bland character only good for T&A?  

Quicksilver's mansion scene felt a little dragged-out. It was good, but not nearly as good as the fight scene from the previous movie. I can't decide 100% if that's because the novelty isn't there anymore, or because the choreography wasn't as good since there were too many vignettes where all he did was run fast. It wasn't until the couple on the roof that it got good with the wacky "oh, that's how he's setting things up," of the first film.

[HaemishM]

I thought this was good, and I thought Oscar Isaac did good with what he had but goddamn there were WAY too many mutants. None of the horsemen but Magneto got any character development (and Magneto got really too much because after 6 movies, WE KNOW WHO HE IS). JLaw's presence as Mystique was really just jarring because if you've seen the other films you keep trying to figure out how this ties into them. And yes, that's despite the time reset/reboot from DoFP because none of THAT is explained at all. Psylocke, Angel and Storm are completely wasted and the Apocalypse power levels were so over the top but without a good battle scene to pay that off (the last scene with him is a bit short on action).

In the long run, I think the reset to the cast was a good thing but the reset to the time line so that this was set in 1983 was a mistake for the franchise, especially if they are going to try to tie it in to Deadpool and the upcoming possible X-Force/Cable thing. Magento will be something like 82 by that time, Jean Grey/Cyclops will be in their late 40's so at this point you HAVE to make all the next films period pieces and Deadpool clearly isn't.

Also,

[Lakov_Sanite]

Mr Sinister is the worst villain name since Snidely Whiplash.

[SurfD]

Well if we are lucky, they will go the same route they did with name dropping Apocalypse when they do Sinister.    Apoc never really ever refers to himself as so, so maybe when they do Sinister, it will be something like:

CharacterA:  We have disccovered that this Essexx guy has been doing all sorts of evil genetic experiments trying to custom make his own perfect bulid-a-mutant!
CharacterB:  Well shit, that's just down right Sinister. (wink / nod at the audience)

[Speedy Cerviche]

[HaemishM]

[Merusk]

* Cue over the top phoenix CGI effect to really underscore the point.*

[Mac]

I think we can all agree that Quicksliver had the best scene in the movie (just as in DOFP).

[Strazos]

Just saw it - movie was decent, not a train wreck, but not quite up to MCU-quality by and large. Quicksilver scene was again probably the best in the movie (character has always been a favorite for me), while Psylocke has about 3 lines as Haemish indicated and is overall pointless. So was Angel. Storm was mildly impactful, while Magneto had a big part to no one's surprise. Mystique was important, but the acting was forgettable. Apocalypse needed to showcase more power overall.

[HaemishM]

I think it was just tying into the narrative of the "new timeline" showing HOW he escaped. I would say it was leading into the first movie but that one never happened now?

[Threash]

The biggest issue was that amazing opening scene made the rest of the movie look bad.  Specially the four horsemen, damn those guys were bad ass.  In the few seconds we saw them in action they made a bigger impression than Angel, Psylocke and Storm did the rest of the movie.

[angry.bob]

Apoc: Bring me the world's most powerful mutants!
Psylocke: I know a dude from fight club with wings?
Apoc:

Yeah, this bugged me too. It seemed like he was content to have the first four mutants he ran into be his elite bodyguards and lieutenants. I haven't read an X book in 20 years and I can name a dozen better choices for the Angel and Psylocke spots.

[Margalis]

About the spoiler: all indications point to "yes."

[shiznitz]

Saw it in 3D (not worth the extra $) but enjoyed it overall. It is certainly the worst of the 3, just like X3 was the worst of its 3, but I still enjoyed them all. While I understand the issues with Styker's age consistency, I liked the tie back. Sansa Stark did fine as Jean Grey but she doesn't have optimal the look I have in my head from reading the comics as a kid. Neither did Famke though.

The change in JLaw's aura (for lack of a better word) from First Class to Apoc was quite striking. I don't know if it was makeup, lighting or just superstar actress strut but she just stood out.  She was JLaw playing a role instead of Mystique. Fail on her part.

I agree on the weakness of the new Four Horsemen vs the old but Apoc had to work with what was available. It would have certainly be sufficient had Magneto and Storm no turned.

Love the new Storm.

[jgsugden]

Given what we know of the foe for the next film... Ugh.  I'm not optimistic.  I would not be surprised if the movie starts a downward trend like we saw with Amazing Spider-man.

Here's hoping for a giant coordinated reboot in 2020 with all the rights in one set of hands.

[HaemishM]

Based on the grosses for this one through 2 weeks, it's following the same box office trend as Spider-Man as well. $400 million worldwide vs. the $700+ million worldwide of DoFP.

[Paelos]

Watched this. Half the mutants were pointless. Effects were fine. I give it a 5 out of 10.