Apocalypse Is A Sleepy Time Wizard And We All Have To Deal With It

If you haven’t run out to the theater to see X:Men Apocalypse yet, I hope you get back from the navy really soon. The rest of us have already burned the bible and totally shut down our home electronics because we realize a new wave experience is festively mounting us, and that’s why things can’t be like they were anymore. This film is a crackerjack barrel with whipped cream on top, and if you aren’t already confined to your home from obesity, it will seal you inside.

Much has changed in the world of the X-Men since we last checked in with them. Gone is X-Manatee, floated down the river with a permanent tear on his cheek. Also, in the last film everyone went to the future, and to fix everything they had to go to the past and meet younger versions of themselves, and this film resumes the storyline in the past with an ensemble cast playing younger versions of the X-Men. They meet Nightcrawler in this movie, even though he shows up in X2 like no one’s ever heard of him. This is probably because he makes a horrible impression on everyone. It’s mentioned in this movie that Quicksilver is the son of Magneto. Not so with Mystique and the shameful Nightcrawler.

Speaking of Quicksilver, these movies love acting like he’s the best guy in the world. In the comics (yeah I know “oh I’m a nerd, ‘in the comics, blah blah blah’ “ ) he’s a jerk who runs pretty fast but seriously is not even the fastest dude in the world. They seriously amp him up here, making him so fast he can hit anyone, or save anyone from anything in any amount of time, so he’s pretty chill because he doesn’t have a lot to worry about, which actually is fine, I’d rather they play the action up than tone it down. They do that in this movie though. I’m sorry, but it happens - in weird places, too. Let’s just go through it and get it over with and feel weird.

This movie has a ton of characters. Good, right? What a relief! Angel is one of them. Angel is this weird German guy who cage fights and sits in rafters drinking vodka and listening to early Metallica, because it’s the 80’s. Or if he’s not from Germany he just chills there and cage fights, which is weirder. This is about as good as his other origin, which is that he’s a rich dude who’s parents rejected him and has to go live with the X-Men, but whatever you think about that as being a good or bad idea for a story he skipped it, and he lives in Germany flying around in a cage and no one knows how he got there, and that’s his life, that’s what he thinks is cool. Who doesn’t relate to that? We all do. Heck, myself, those specific actions are exactly what I do. That’s what I’m doing right now!

Professor X goes 100 percent Bob Saget in this story, and nearly doesn’t survive. It’s just a good thing his dog with a barrel of brandy around it’s collar came to save him in the swiss alps after his friend macho man randy savage fell in a hole and exploded. That’s all I’m saying about it. Also he goes totally bald in this movie from a damn harsh magic spell so like, finally?

Let’s just cut to the cheese and start talking about Apocalypse. Apocalypse did that to Professor X, what I just said, with his hair. He does a lot of other things in this movie too. He does a lot of things to people’s hair. He appears in this film as the inventor of meatballs, an ancient mutant who preceded all others temporally. But here’s where the film goes awry and you feel like the writer really needed more time alone with their thoughts and some pineapple rings and white rum, because ok, he’s supposed to be everyone’s dad and everything, and in the comics they had him be this dude who walked the earth for all time, so ok that’s how he’s the first mutant and had a bunch of mutant kids, here though he lay down in a pyramid trying to have egyptians give him powers, because he’s so pathetic in this movie he has to do that because he’s some kind of energy vampire with a romantic music radio station dj voice, and they made it cave on him, and that ruined his life, he hibernated throughout history and has no past, wow, that’s so much cooler. Seriously, what gives with that. Admittedly he has one or two redeeming attributes, mostly his powers are creating force fields and teleporting and shifting around the particles of things to turn them into other things, kind of like the transporter in Star Trek which I assume everyone has seen at least once. It’s said he has these powers because his only real power is to absorb other mutant’s powers, and we see that he does this by lying down near them and then doing this thing where they both jiggle around for a little while. This is a total rewrite, originally he was just a person who could grow to gigantic sizes and was immortal, and gained most of his powers by conquesting in the world of superheroes for four to five thousand years. My problem with this is the decision just makes him a totally different person. In the original story he’s a giant, and he’s very old, and there’s really no guessing the depth of his schemes or what all he can do, and he’s simultaneously very detached and very aggressive and dangerous and deeply wrong, and dealing with him is a very messed up, challenging, long term experience. In this movie he’s this naive blue man who’s like five foot eleven and wears heavy robes, and although he can at least point at things with his finger and make them blow up respectably, watching you always have the underlying knowledge that he’s not a mastermind of the eons with a limitless arsenal grafted his body, he’s like a regrettably evil version of et because he couldn’t handle his life and he got trapped in a cave in. Also, another thing to think of is what him having his current set of powers means is at one point there was a mutant who’s power was controlling matter with his mind, and Apocalypse beat him by getting him to lie down on a table and zapping it out of him. That guy must have been an idiot. The final fight is Apocalypse out-levitating everyone who tries to levitate things at him till the losing side just can’t levitate no more making it either a landslide or a stunning coup but hey guys, no spoilers. Before I throw this treacherous piece of garbage to the ground and forget him forever, I’m going to tell you there are two kinds of sci fi movies. Good ones, and ones where you can tell everyone is wearing face paint. I feel like the movie really succeeds because I feel really bad for the mutants, it must be really hard being born with face paint on. I’m sure a fox will eat me alive for this, but I don’t care. I lived a virtuous life.

So fuck Apocalypse and grind his dick in the dirt. This movie has other characters too. Wolverine briefly appears in shortpants in what I already proudly yelled in the theater was the mostly contractually obligated cameo I’d ever seen, courtesy of actor Hugh Jackman, who is the only name most people are going to remember from previous X movies. You figure he must really need the work. It’s a pretty good scene though as he bloodily rips through a military complex run by Sean William Scott, actually Ronald Mayonnaise, who snubs the wolfman after he denies him a christian experience, whatever that means. I made it up, I didn’t even see this movie. I sweah.

Jubilee also appears, and you’re probably just as excited as crap that she does, but she doesn’t do anything other than almost go to a picnic which gets cancelled.

Cyclops is back. He’s exactly the same. Nightcrawler is back. He’s still funny for some reason. Psylocke is introduced. She’s highly sexual and her powers are incredibly good compared to the books, with her light sword chopping things in half instead of giving people brain episodes. That was cool but it only worked if she punched people in the head, she had to cover a lot of ground, it was kind of a limiting, challenging power to have. Havok is there. He’s this guy in a business shirt who gets pretty mad and falls to his knees and a pillar of flame bursts from his chest. If you like movies Storm is in, prepare to feel the emotion "like" because she's totally present, getting originized by Apocalypse who dyes her hair by choking her in an Egyptian living room in a scene that is equal parts Party Monster and American Sniper.

Also Magneto is there, his powers are a lesser version of Apocalypse’s, except his powers are a faithful literary translation, so I guess that was the great idea, making Apocalypse Magneto but a hundred times over. Evil mutants all make things float in the air. Whatever. I guess they thought having Apocalypse be a weird guy in some kind of metal football pads getup who looks like a tan gorilla wearing blue lipstick and turns into a godzilla sized monster with power tools for hands would be too weird but I think they should have tried it. He’s not himself here. He’s some low-key-obsessive-makes-things-float-guy, he’s like, Saruman, or something. It’s not the intimidating Apocalypse I think these stories need.

Deviating from the obsessive Apocalypse sidebar, the movie delves some into Magneto stories from the 70’s or 80’s about him trying to move his family around and having a horrible time being a mutant which is a really good bit of the film. Also, Fox granted my wish and made Magneto a large dude like he appears on the page instead of Ian Mckellan mercilessly bringing the kind of gaunt which apparently dominates any role?

So, in conclusion, by the end of the movie I’m pretty sure they blow the guy up, levitating him into the air disintegrating him down to the skeleton, unless that balloon full of nitrous we were passing around had gotten to me at that point, so they make the classic movie mistake of throwing villains away forever so they can never return in combinations even though there are usually meant to be recurring appearances for the hero. You know, villains dying used to be a very rare special occasion. Like Sin Eater, he was just a man with a rifle who kept shooting people for no reason and it pissed Spider Man off. Killing him was not only fun and easy, it was a good idea. Why on earth would you kill Apocalypse? He’s totally a menace! Who knows if he’s peeping you from space or whatever? The excitement of X-Men becomes more as you think about this while the regular action is happening!

X Men Apocalypse is an anything goes thrill ride for the whole family with no safety bar where the baby falls out, but don’t tell grandma the grandbaby died, and don’t wake daddy, and quit playing games with my heart. Watch it while you eat pickles.