There is a searing sense of humanity in “X-Men: Apocalypse’s” effort to thrust Magneto (Michael Fassbender), one of its key characters, into its emotional core.
This allows a brief, but commanding moment establish a formidable ground to a film that aspires for enormous accomplishments. Yet these very same ambitions also seem to serve as malignant flaws that inevitably drags this Bryan Singer’s desirous experiment into its very own apocalypse.
While it stands with its impressive visual execution and incredible size—boasting one of the biggest character ensembles in superhero cinema—”X-Men: Apocalypse” can only carry out ephemeral glories that can never compensate for the film’s utter lack of structure. Ambition turns out to be this film’s biggest threat.
As compelling as descriptions might have made him appear, titular ‘Apocalypse’ (Oscar Isaac), doesn’t seem capable to inspire the terror he seems to claim. For a villainous figure whose omnipotent power is meant to decimate civilizations, his efforts are mostly spent for futile chases that mostly involve expanding his network of mutants.
At some point, the film shifts entirely on laying grounds for an apocalyptic battle that the narrative doesn’t seem bothered to get to at a tolerable pace. Along the way, it constructs further story lines which it willingly abandons before any palpable resolution arrives.
The film struggles to hold all its weight and extensions together, and yet it keeps introducing elements for which it has no evident plans to efficiently utilize. Much of this film turns out only trying to expand size, but at the expense of having a decent structure. Interesting characters get left undeveloped, their backstories often written without congruence to the central story line.
And as it may insist, Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) and Professor X (James McAvoy)’s struggle runs on an emotional spine that mainly involves a campaign to retrieve Fassbender’s Magneto from Apocalypse’s hold. All these actors come out more powerful than their roles dictate them to be, defying the limits of their extremely poorly-written characters with strong performances that are enough to cover up for their characters’ lack of development.
A short but incredibly singular performance by Fassbender during the film’s early minutes may be the spot where the film’s sense of humanity is at its peak. Unfortunately, this distinction is relegated below technical pursuits. The ones with smaller roles are seemingly just too small to be served with affecting story line, an apparent flaw in which Sophie Turner’s Jean Grey fell.
For all its narrative faults, a hope for some compensations may not at all strike as a bad idea. Singer, here, tries to build an immersive world where action sequences are filled with whizzing lethal beams and energy collisions. The one he creates inspire awe and paves way for breathtaking moments, but this is already as far it can get.
“X-Men: Apocalypse”, in spite of its elaborate designs, doesn’t quite get past its mammoth aspirations. It has a lot of stuff going on but the film itself deprives them with space to breathe, and eventually seamlessly integrate with each other in the cosmic expanse that Singer ambitiously tries to construct.
So, technical splendor and terrific action set pieces, aside, the only thing that actually makes this film commendable, is the sizable amount of reverence it pays to the canon (if you’re not a comic fan, this will be easy to figure out in a theater filled with fans), making this Bryan Singer’s biggest fan service to date. This movie is tolerable at best.
RATING: 2/4 (Je)
4 – Terrific
3 – Good
2 – Tolerable
1 – Terrible
