DIRECTOR: Bryan Singer LEAD CAST: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Oscar
Isaac, Nicholas Hoult, Rose Byrne, Tye Sheridan, Sophie Turner, Olivia Munn,
Lucas Till SCREENWRITER: Simon Kinberg PRODUCER:
Lauren Shuler Donner, Simon Kinberg, Bryan Singer, Hutch Parker EDITOR: John Ottman, Michael Louis Hill MUSICAL DIRECTOR:
John Ottman GENRE: Action and Adventure, Science Fiction
and Fantasy, Superhero film CINEMATOGRAPHER: Newton Thomas Sigel DISTRIBUTOR:
20th Century Fox LOCATION: United States RUNNING TIME: 144 minutes
Technical assessment:
3
Moral assessment: 3
CINEMA rating: V14
MTRCB rating: PG
The film opens with an event that happened thousands of years
ago in Egypt—the ancient powerful mutant Apocalypse is being betrayed by his
followers, keeping him entombed for centuries. Then fast forward to Year 1983—about
ten years after the events of Days of Future Past, Charles Xavier aka Professor
X (James McAvoy) is still running his school for the gifted that helps young
mutants control their powers. Magneto (Michael Fassbender) on the other side of
the earth is hiding and trying to live a peaceful, ordinary life with a new
family—until a tragedy strikes. Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) is trying to
escape the limelight that came with saving the world back in 1973 and is
traveling in secret, saving mutants around the world from dangerous and
terrible situations. Meanwhile, Apocalypse awakens from thousands of years of
slumber—and poses a threat to re-shape or destroy the world as he had planned
before in his evil likeness. He recruits his new four horsemen—Storm, Angel,
Psylocke, and Magneto—to join forces with him as he is out to destroy Professor
X and his mutant allies along with entire humankind.
X-Men Apocalypse
is another visual spectacle meant to keep up with the hype of its previous
installments and franchise. The film may be successful visually in terms of
computer graphic effects, but it utterly fails to deliver a solid story. The
entire running time is wasted on useless pursuits—like the weak villain who
appears to be of ultimate power and strength yet still invests in recruiting
mutants to back him up. The film lacks centrality; the point-of-view is
confusing with varied character arcs and incohesive subplots. In its entirety, the film is
entertaining yet lacks soul despite stunning performances of the lead casts and
impressive visuals. It feels tiresome and convoluted with too many characters
and elements. Despite its apparent flaws, however, the concept of the franchise
is still genius and one cannot discount the fact that it takes extra-ordinary
talent to come out with such a consistent blockbuster.
This
latest franchise of the popular series now takes on a macro-perspective with a
central theme of an ultimate evil out to destroy the world, still at the
backdrop of humans gifted with superhuman capacities tagged as mutants. The
gift or power is seen in the film as having the potential of being either a
blessing or a curse to humankind. While Professor X sees it as a blessing that
needs to be enhanced for the betterment of humanity, here comes Apocalypse
whose selfish interest would make him use his power to destroy the world. With
that, the battle is between good and evil, with the good at times confusing our
notion of good with their evil looks. This goes to show that goodness lies in
the heart and is always beyond what the naked eye can see, as humans tend to be
inhuman at times in wrongfully judging the other as evil based only on outer
appearance. Still, the values presented in the film should be emulated—faith in
the true God, the power of good over evil, team-spirit and cooperation,
self-control over one’s power to use it for greater good, courage and bravery
to fight for what is right. Humans may well learn from mutants—that they have
gifts, unique gifts that must be enhanced and used for the purpose of making
this world a better place to live in. Given the dominant theme of darkness and
of visuals and images that are quite disturbing although in context, CINEMA
finds X-Men Apocalypse as
appropriate only for viewers 14 and above.
