kanna-chan's cafe

Hey guys, kanna here.

Well, we all knew this was inevitable. Given my love for the world of X-Men, it was only a matter of time before this review came out. I know it's not an Anime Monday, but whatever. I'm working hard on that one. For now:

We have most of our favorite X-Men returning for this movie: James McAvoy as Charles Xavier/Professor X, Michael Fassbender as Erik Lensherr, Jennifer Lawrence as Raven/Mystique, Lucas Till as Alex Summers/Havok, Evan Peters as Peter (Pietro) Maximoff/Quicksilver (yeah, Quicksilver is back!!!), Rose Byrne as Moira MacTaggert (ugh...) and Nicholas Hoult as Hank McCoy/Beast.

We also get a lot of new cast members to play young versions of the X-Men from the trilogy, such as Sophie Turner (who you may recognize as Sansa Stark from Game of Thrones) as Jean Grey, Tye Sheridan as Scott Summers/Cyclops, Kodi Smit-McPhee as Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler, Ben Hardy as Warren Worthington III/Angel/Archangel, Lana Condor as Jubilation Lee/Jubilee, Olivia Munn as Psylocke and Alexandra Shipp as Ororo Munroe/Storm. Our villain, Apocalypse, is played by Oscar Isaac, who you might recognize as Po Dameron from Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Additionally, we get the return of Josh Helman as William Stryker, as well as a few cameos and other additions I'm not going to mention, because if I did, you'd be sitting here and reading this getting bored.

So if you remember the post-credits scene of Days of Future Past, you should remember a bunch of people saying "En Sabah Nur," which is apparently insert-language-here for "the first one," as En Sabah Nur was believed to be the first ever mutant.

Speaking of, after a narration from who I believe to be Oscar Isaac (which isn't as good as any of Patrick Stewart's narrations, but given that those narrations are on a whole other level, it's...decent, at best), our movie opens up in ancient Egypt with a bunch of people chanting, "En Sabah Nur," who I will now be referring to as Apocalypse for the duration of this review.

So, since the beginning of civilization, Apocalypse ruled the world from ancient Egypt, as he was believed to be the first and most powerful mutant. However, during a ceremony where they were trying to transfer his consciousness into another body (we find out why later in the movie), some of his followers betray him, killing the proverbial Four Horsemen and entombing Apocalypse for thousands of years.

We then jump to 1983 in Ohio, where we see Scott Summers finally discovering his mutant ability of being able to fire plasma rays from his eyes (sound similar to someone you may know?). His brother, Alex Summers/Havok, takes him to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, where we see James McAvoy proudly sporting a mullet haircut. And may I say it actually looks good on him? I mean, he already looked good, the mullet just made him...okay, I can't obsess over James McAvoy in this. I won't. Promise.

After that, we cut to Berlin of the same year, where we see Angel fighting another mutant, Blob. After defeating the other mutant, we then see a young Nightcrawler, a mutant who can teleport, get thrust into the cage to fight against Angel. Raven has somehow made it inside, and she turns the voltage of the electric cage up as high as it can go. After Nightcrawler manages to put Angel up against the cage, frying his wings, Raven helps him escape and eventually brings him to the institute.

We return to Egypt, where we meet a young Storm, who is saved from four men by Apocalypse, who decapitates three of them and literally melts the last guy into a wall. I couldn't make that up if I tried. Storm returns to her house with Apocalypse in tow, and Apocalypse uses the TV to "learn." He becomes disgusted with what the world has become and decides to recreate the world in his own image, with only the strongest mutants and himself ruling. To start such an endeavor, he starts recruiting his Four Horsemen. Storm's powers are increased and her hair is turned white as she is recruited to be his first Horseman, Famine.

Oh, I should probably clarify. The Four Horsemen of the apocalypse are Famine, War, Death, and Pestilence. Back to the review.

We return to the Institute, where Alex has brought Scott to visit the professor and meets young Jean Grey. Scott receives glasses so that he can see without releasing the beams from his eyes, and is enrolled in the institute.

We cut to Poland, where we see Erik Lensherr has gotten married and had a daughter named Nina. Nina is also a mutant, and her ability is to communicate with and influence animals. Erik has renamed himself Henryk Gorzky, and works at some kind of factory with metal. He hadn't used his powers at the factory, until an earthquake happened, which caused something big to fall on one of the workers, which he stopped to save the worker's life.

Unfortunately for Erik, this means that he, his wife, and his daughter, have to leave Poland, for fear of Erik being exposed as Magneto. However, he's too late, as the Polish authorities have come, without metal, and kidnapped Nina. Erik agrees to turn himself in, but Nina, who was too young to be able to control her mutant powers, unleashes a flock of birds on the authorities who threatened to take her father away. An arrow was accidentally fired, however, and this killed both Erik's wife and Nina. Erik kills the men, and then goes to the factory to kill the workers for alerting the authorities.

Seeing as the earthquake was an anomaly, Hank, Alex, and Charles all go to Cerebro to see what happened with it. Thanks to Cerebro, we are reunited with Moira MacTaggert (ugh...), who Charles still has feelings for (ugh...). Alex and Charles visit Moira, who explains how she was investigating Apocalypse throughout history and learned that he would give his Horsemen special powers to aid in destroying whatever they wanted.

We then meet our next recruit, Psylocke, who becomes Pestilence of the Four Horsemen. Shortly after that, we are introduced to Angel, who becomes Archangel after receiving metal wings from Apocalypse and becoming the third horseman, Death.

Our last horseman (War) shouldn't come as much of a surprise. It's Erik.

So now, our heroes are up against a super dangerous foe capable of hacking into Cerebro (which he does, and manipulates a bunch of government people to send their nuclear missiles into the air), along with his new followers.

What do I give this: 3 out of 5.

Why: First off, as much as I liked this movie, it wasn't as good as Days of Future Past or First Class. I felt like the writers were just riding the popularity train from those two movies and just got lazy. Apocalypse didn't get a ton of character development. In the trailer, and even in the post-credits scene from Days of Future Past, he was built up as the ultimate villain; someone on a whole other level than Trask or Shaw or any of the other X-Men villains. Here...I don't really know how to explain it, but it feels like his character wasn't developed enough.

The acting is pretty good, but the fight scenes were a little hard to follow, and the plot itself felt a little...cliche.

I am a sucker for a good soundtrack, though, and I will say that this movie did have the better soundtrack. And the scene where they slowed everything down for Quicksilver was pretty awesome, too.

We also get an after credits scene that builds up to the third (and possibly final) Wolverine movie, as well as the upcoming Gambit movie. But with Singer possibly stepping away from the franchise to work on other things...well, I'm not getting my hopes up for those movies.

Well, that's it! I hope you enjoyed my review of X-Men: Apocalypse! Stay tuned for Anime Monday #18, where I review Gunslinger Girl! ~k