The latest installment of Fox’s X-Men Series hit theaters last month. it was recieved with... let's call it mixed reviews. I saw it last week and decided that I would throw in my two cents in the discussion, with just a few things that I saw was wrong.
Also *Spoiler Alert*obviously
1. BEHOLD GRANDPA SMURF THE DESTROYER!!!
So this series has to varying degrees of extremity redesigned the characters. I will even grant that the imposing figure that struck by the figure in the comics would not have translated very well into a live action motion picture. But, why?! Why in Ra’s name did you make him look like a pallet swapped Ivan Ooze!
Can anyone actually take this guy seriously? He looks like a bad He-Man villain. Which is sad because it undercuts Oscar Isaac’s amazing performance. It’s just hard to take the Eldritch Super-Mutant threatening genocide on mankind when he looks like he should be shaking his fist in the air as he yells “I’ll get you next time He-Man! NYAAAAAA!!!”
2. J Law is Old?
It’s weird to think of Jennifer Lawrence as the matriarchal figure of this movie. Jennifer Lawrence, and she is just Jennifer Lawrence she doesn’t where the makeup enough to remember that she is Mystique half the time, is supposed to be the grizzled veteran for the younger generation to look up to.
But, the problem is she looks so young and so recognizably Jennifer Lawrence it’s hard to think of her as a woman that’s been hardened by her experiences.
Then as the movie goes on you sit back and realize… It’s the 80’s, and in First Class she was like 10 when she met young Professor X which was at the end of WW2. So, in 1983 she would be… IN HER 40’s! What? You gave Jennifer Lawrence her own Makeup Artist but didn’t bother to make her look any older?
She's not even blue in the poster
3. Too Many Mutants in the Kitchen
Let me just preface this bit by saying I personally think that pretty much everyone did a great job in their roles. Which was my main problem. Every character was interesting, but there was so many characters that none really had enough time to be really appreciated by the audience.
Take Psylocke for example. Olivia Munn did a great job making Psylocke just super intense. That said I think Psylocke only spoke like two times, and her only fight scene consisted of Psylocke beating on beast then getting knocked out for the rest of the movie. Really cool character that I want to see more about, then gets taken out before she really gets a chance to do anything,
4. What is Apocalypse doing?
Apocalypse wants to destroy the modern world, and he does this in the slowest way possible. He essentially has magneto do the same thing Nukes would have done, but just much slower.
At one point he controlled the Nuclear Arsenal of the entire world (including Israel haha not gonna slip that by me Fox) and he even launched them all. Then he just shot them into space, instead of you know… destroying the world?
He has teleportation powers, there’s no reason for him not to just Nuke every population center, then just start building a city in the middle of nowhere. But, no apparently tearing all the metal out of the planet is easier.
5. Did Magneto destroy the world?
That said I’m pretty sure Magneto just destroyed modern civilization, if what happened in San Francisco and Sydney happened all around the world, and all at once apparently, then every major city in the world is in ruins.
Which presents a twofold problem. One THE WORLD IS DESTROYED. Two how is Magneto not going to just take over the world? He can destroy cities literally from anywhere on the planet.
All I’m saying is if Magneto isn’t ruling over a post-apocalyptic House of M style earth with an iron (heh heh) fist, I’m going to be disappointed.
6. Confusing Timeline
So for anyone who hadn’t kept a super close eye on this new series of x-men movies they might know where this movie fits in to the series timeline. To those people I say! Me, too.
I was under the impression that all these past storyline movies were just prequels to the originally X men trilogy. But, Angel and Psylocke were both in this movie a full 20 years before young versions of them show up in X2 and The Last Stand. Also apparently Magneto really hates the Golden Gate Bridge, because he destroyed it in Apocalypse and The Last Stand.
So is this might be an alternate timeline or maybe something else, either way it wasn’t made apparent and was super confusing.
7. Humans only exist to be in "the Way"
I don’t know if anyone else noticed this but no human really did anything in this movie. The only one who did is Col. Striker and all he did was drag the plot down to a crawl. Even when Apocalypse started to destroy the world the all of world’s governments and militaries responded by… impotently sitting around staring at monitors saying, “Oh No! We’re all going to die… Oh No!”
Hello I'm here to derail the plot and look smug doing it
The main human character from First Class, Moira the a cool kick butt CIA agent, was just a source of exposition and a love interest for Prof. X. They even avoided actually building any chemistry between the two by saying he wiped her mind and when he gave it back they immediately fell back in love.
8. Remember the Holocaust is terrible, so let’s move on to senseless mass murder
There is a scene where Magneto is brought to Auschwitz and is forced to confront the place where his mutation manifested. It is very powerful and cathartic as Magneto gets a power boost and literally tears the symbol of his enmity towards mankind apart, it makes the audience pause and they get a chance to think about the trauma that he went through that made him what he is today.
Which is later ruined a few scenes later when Apocalypse when he literally just waves his hand and wipes out an entire city full of people. It sends confusing signals when the weight of death is used as a somber reminder of character motivation in one scene, then as window dressing in another.
I'm sure they're just fine
*Bonus* BTW Did You Guys Know Jubilee was in this Movie?
GUYS! LOOK! IT'S JUBILEE!
I don’t know how I didn’t notice one of my favorite characters from the animated series, but apparently Jubilee is in this movie. This isn’t a knock against the movie because it’s like I already said there were too many characters in this movie. But, I’m just excited Jubilee exists in this canon!
Now how to make shooting fireworks from your hands cool on screen?