Is it weird to say I don’t get the appeal of the X-Men
movies? X-Men is something that
has been with me for basically my entire life as a nerd. When I was a kid growing up in the ‘90s
the animated series was in its heyday, I’ve seen all of the live action films
at their premiere, watched X-Men:
Evolution when it was coming out weekly, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the
Claremont, Kirby, and Morrison comic runs on the characters. In my whole life there consuming and
critiquing nerd culture content there really hasn’t been anything as continual
as the X-Men and yet I’d never call myself a legitimate fan.
A lot of that
has to do with the X-Men’s status quo always coming off far too barebones and
uninspired, in the sense that it’s considered some brilliantly cerebral
superhero riff even though the subtext rarely factors into the actual story and
the status quo is less about a clash of ideologies than it is just about having
ideologies that have been arbitrarily assigned good and evil status. That whole sort of “good enough”
aesthetic has always translated over to the X-Men films to and I’d be lying if
I said I didn’t see some of it in the newly dropped trailer for X-Men: Apocalypse.
Now to be clear there are elements of this trailer that I
like, predominately revolving around Oscar Isaac’s central turn as
Apocalypse. I admit, I was
expecting a much deeper and more commanding voice, that’s usually how
Apocalypse is portrayed, but swapping that out for the more sinister and almost
seductive quiet tone works well here and goes a long way to setting him apart
from Thanos. Overall, this
depiction of Apocalypse seems to be calculated to around the idea of making him
as different from Thanos and Darkseid, his two conquering companions, as
possible, swapping out the normal hulking size and deep voice for a wirier
frame and a soft spoken affect. Mainly
though, I like that Apocalypse is actually recognizable as Apocalypse. I’ve always disliked that the X-Men
films seem to think black rubber is the end all, be all of superhero costume
design so the fact that we’re getting an Apocalypse who really does seem to be
a walking cobalt blue quasi-mechanical monster is pretty great.
Most of his origin seems to be intact based on this trailer
though it’s a well-streamlined version.
In the comics Apocalypse’s origin is actually really beleaguered and
bogged down with weird cosmic elements involving the Celestials, the big
armored space folks from Guardians of the
Galaxy, which would’ve been difficult to put into the film. On the flip side it’s still pretty
unclear what Apocalypse’s actual powers or motivations are, simply that he’s a
bad dude so he’s got to die, which has kind of always been the X-Men’s MO. It’s ironic, the X-Men are a franchise
based entirely around talking up ideologies and philosophy but they tend to
just arbitrarily assert Professor X’s pacifist resistance as the right path
regardless of discussion.
That was a big part of my problem with Days of Future Past, the Sentinels are just evil because they’re
evil, never mind that having an army of robots specifically made to fight super
beings would probably be pretty useful in taking down Apocalypse, the ancient
demigod. Fox did tweet an Apocalypse
centric poster in the days immediately following the trailer with the tagline
“only the strong will survive” imply he will have his mentality that strength
rather than genetic identity is the true identifier of worth rather than just
being a more powerful version of Magneto’s outlook of violent revolution.
Speaking of Magneto it’s nice that he’s finally started
looking like Magneto and Michael Fassbender still looks like he’s giving it
110% in every scene. Of the
incredibly mixed bag that is the X-Men films Fassbender remains their ace in
the hole, probably one of the best comic book castings and, if we’re being
honest, a better fit for Magneto than Ian McKellan was. James McAvoy looks a lot more tolerable
as Xavier this time around compared to his insufferable whining last movie and
he seems to have settled into the cadence of the role nicely. This is an Xavier who feels a lot older
and wiser, more professorial albeit in the vein of a “cool teacher.” I admit to a certain amount of
nostalgia for the original X Mansion and the underground facility but at the
same time the Cerebro chamber and training facilities do feel a little dated
and bare bones.
Minimalism has always been an intrinsic part of the X-Men
film franchise but it’s one that’s never really gelled with the source material
and that dissonance is still here.
See also, stuff like slotting Cyclops, Jubilee, and Nightcrawler into
the same, ugly, black rubber battle suits the films always insist on. It’s still a little unclear if the new
recruits will get the kind of character development they always lacked in the
original run of films given that basically none of the additional X-Men in Days of Future Past got even the barest
minimum development (serious, what was Bishop’s deal in that movie?) but I’m
still hopeful.
The main thing that makes me hopeful is that this is the
first X-Men film aside from First Class
that seems to be trying to shake up the series very tired formula. Apocalypse looks like he’s actually
going to be the main villain and isn’t just a smoke screen to reveal Magneto
behind it, Wolverine isn’t anywhere in sight and it seems like this one might
actually give focus to the other X-Men, Xavier and Havok working with the CIA
would imply the emphasis on “protecting those who fear and hate us” has been at
the very least downplayed.
Incidentally
I suspect Wolverine will probably turn up with memory loss in the third act in
full on Weapon X form as part of the CIA’s anti-Apocalypse counter
measures. One of the few positive
things to come out of Days of Future Past
was that it proved Bryan Singer can direct solid big scale action and there’s
an impressive visual flair to be gained from featuring a lot of X-Men in a big
team up fight so if the conclusion to this film is about the X-Men going
head-to-head with Apocalypse in a brawl of multiple powers and abilities fueled
by actual characters and drama I’d be all for it.
Unfortunately there’s still a lot of niggling doubts for
me. Aside from the few I’ve
mentioned the costumes are all terrible, especially Archangel, and tragically
indicative of the drab and dour visual design as a whole. It’s actually kind of ironic in that
the X-Men comic was actually a failure when it first came out mainly due to the
drab uniforms of the characters and it wasn’t till the series relaunched in the
‘70s with vibrant individual costumes that it began to find traction. Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique seems to
be on the same level of acting autopilot that she used to coast through Days of Future Past and the idea that
she’s just abandoned her somewhat interesting ideology from that film (kill
people who hurt mutants but not outright revolution) is a big let down.
The biggest red flag though, is that this still looks like a
film that’s ashamed of its source material. The drab designs, the way it never
actually calls Oscar Isaac Apocalypse (in fact I doubt he’ll ever be referred
to that in the film,) the way it goes out of its way to try and justify the
horseman thing in a real world grounding, it all feels like it’s shouting “take
me seriously!” except without much of a deeper meaning or even guiding ideology
to define it. Still it looks well
directed with a good scope and at least the promise of being better than the
last one, which basically means it’s sliding by on the same old doctrine that’s
always buoyed the X-Men films: it looks good enough.
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