Hmmm....
In 2014, one of the best XMEN films, "XMEN: Days of Future Past" barraged us with a great story, clever film making and a great time traveling story that somehow merged two timelines and a lot of superb characters nearly perfectly.
How do you follow that?
With a very busy, noisy and inferior follow up called XMEN APOCALYPSE.
The film opens in ancient Egypt, showing us the universe's first mutant, a giant bluish power parasite named Apocalypse. Siphoning the lifeforce out of all the humans and all the life & powers out of any mutants he destroys, Apocalypse is trapped under a collapsing pyramid faster than Bernie Madoff and left dormant.
The story than moves forward to 1983, where an archaeological dig unearths our blue meanie, who is less than thrilled with the state of the world and decides to recruit any mutants with a dark side for his cause.
Spinning around that core story, we find all of our favorite characters and a few new ones lining up on the good & bad sign of the brewing conflict.
James McAvoy is a great Professor Xavier, leading the charge for good and Michael Fassbinder is terrific as Erik/Magneto. The film nicely fleshes out Erik's backstory and his current life in hiding. Shielding his powers, he's carved out a new life. When his attempts to do good yield tragic results, the film has some of its best moments, tellingly also its most quiet.
Oscar Issac is a superb actor in quiet films like "Inside Llewyn Davis" or blockbusters like "Star Wars: The Force Awakens", but here he's not given much to work with and its a big waste of his talents. More on that later.
Jennifer Lawrence is fine as Raven/Mystique, Nicholas Hoult is terrific as Hank/Beast and Sophie Turner (Game of Thrones "Sansa") is very good as the young Jean Grey.
Just as he did in the last film, Evan Peters steals the movie with a three minute slowed down action sequence as his character Quicksilver moves with his super speed to save everyone in the Xmen School from sure destruction, set to the tune of the Eurythmics "Sweet Dreams Are Made of This". It's a standout sequence and the most enjoyable part of the film.
For most of its two hour and twenty minute running time, there's plenty to see. The action is plenty, the effects are superb. But unlike the last film, I didn't really find a lot to care about in the story. The end of the world is in balance, but I've seen these apocalyptic, grand scale battles so many times on film that they've lost their power to thrill without a new angle.
Like any Bond film or superhero movie, the strength of the bad guy often influences the strength of the film.
For every Goldfinger battling OO7 or Doc Ock tangling with Spiderman, we have a nemesis like Apocalypse. He's big, he's loud, he's a triumph of design and at his core, just empty.
Come to think of it, you could say the same exact thing about this entire movie.
X-MEH......I'll give it a C.
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