X-Men: Apocalypse

Days of Future Past was already a harbinger of future total shit and incomprehensible creative decline, and, unfortunately, Age of Apocalypse is full of that. All the things we loved about the X-Men – the characters, the relationships, the connection to reality – are missing here and have been replaced by the classic comic-book elements of Marvel: a CGI mess and a constant change of locations that is supposed to evoke a sort of build-up of the plot. There are only a few really good scenes that will resonate though – primarily almost everything with Fassbender and a minute of Wolverine, unless you count Jennifer Lawrence in a sexy purple costume, or a few nice visual effects that just copy what we've seen better/more sparingly used in previous episodes. The gamble on youth didn't pay off and neither did the super villain, who, surprisingly, wants to destroy the world – something we haven’t seen yet. (11/09/2016)

A gift for Bryan Singer. After contributing to the series with origin, key work, and crossover, the situation finally arises where he can rampage carelessly, break free from the chain, and simply shoot a pure team comic book. I knew from the announcement of the storyline that it wouldn't be routine, but that it would be one of the highlights of the entire universe, and I'm still breathless a day after seeing it. It's not just a clash with an unbeatable enemy, but also the way the heroes themselves are incorporated into it. There's no need to develop them because we've spent six movies with some of them and know what to expect from them. Magneto's next attempt to exit the scene, Raven's inability to cope with herself and with mutants as such, or the newly developing juniors portrayed by Scott and Jean are still storylines that complete the already perfect cocktail of characters and motifs. And when you add Quicksilver, the visit to Lake Alkali, or the astral confrontation of the strongest wills, X-Men: Apocalypse becomes the strongest superhero film at least of this year. (29/05/2016)

Let's face it: this movie isn't very good, but then again, I wasn't bored. Granted it had scenes where I'm not sitting in the cinema but at the PC, so I'm stomping them because their bullshit was unlistenable; on the other hand, it had a scene I'd like to see again, which of course is the one with the great music and the "express train". There's not much to say about the acting, the actors didn't really stand out, the story was kind of rubbish, but the music managed to draw you in. It's a heavy middling film that surprisingly didn't bore me too much; I only had to roll my eyes about three times. :-D Get over how illogical it was that a bunch of Polish workers could speak English (since we're on location and speaking a foreign language, let's play it to the hilt!), or that one randomly shot ordinary arrow (which wouldn't have a metal tip!) kills two birds with one stone, and it's a nice movie for an evening when you come home from work and just want to be entertained. 55%. (19/05/2016)

I didn't expect that. So many good moments and actors drowned in such a bland story... And also directed by Bryan Singer. If only he'd made a standalone movie with the (totally awesome) Weapon X instead of this hastily cobbled together sequel that shouldn't even be compared to the first two or Days of Future Past..... Oh dear. The villain sucks, the plot has almost no overlap and the relationships between the characters are hardly interesting (yet that's what I've always enjoyed most about X-Men) and the whole thing is mostly a parade of gimmicks interspersed with something worth mentioning here and there. I was downright bored by the multi-destructive ending, and I'm actually disappointed to the point of being angry at how they managed to dilute the already diluted X-Men cinematic universe even more. (19/05/2016)

I have a soft spot for the X-Men, after all, they showed how to confidently make comic book adaptations, managing to make them smart and ambitious, stripping them of the label of children's entertainment. They've always been smarter, had better fleshed out characters, and didn’t care about black and white. That is, until recently, because X-Men: Apocalypse is a step backwards in everything I listed above. And a hell of a big one. The sixth X-Men movie feels like something that was made in the late 90s, a time when it wasn't the norm to have characters dealing with a crisis of faith (like Nightcrawler in X-Men 2), drawing on the political situation of the 70s (Days of Future Past), or wondering if mutation was a disease or evolution (more or less the entire original trilogy). Now we have a blue idiot who wants to destroy the world for his ego, and that's it. Bryan Singer and his team seem to have ditched what has always been their strength and made a generic blockbuster for a lot of money. Unfortunately, the director's action sequences never work as well as the character work, he doesn't quite master the digital effects either, and he's got a bunch of characters that are either underused or completely unnecessary. In the end, it turned out to be a mediocre quarter-billion dollar movie. Personally, I'm used to more from this franchise. A lot more. (15/05/2017)