Release date:
|
May 20, 2016
|
Director:
|
Bryan Singer
|
Cast:
Language:
|
James McAvoy,
Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Oscar Isaac, Nicholas Hoult, Sophie
Turner, Rose Byrne, Tye Sheridan, Olivia Munn, Evan Peters
English
|
The first hour of X-Men: Apocalypse holds out the promise of fun, if nothing else, of the
kind we have had with the best films of the series so far. It is filled with
self-deprecating humour and pathos, rich in reminders that superhuman abilities
are a double-edged sword for those on whom they are bestowed.
The central antagonist,
En Sabah Nur / Apocalypse, has the ability to embed his enemies in walls and reduce
human beings to dust. His first encounter with people here is as wolf-whistle-worthy
as the introduction of a villain in a superhero flick ought to be.
A continent away, the
tour of Magneto’s personal life is poignant and beautifully shot, even if not
terribly original. And across the Atlantic, sparks fly between the younger
mutants.
There is much to
recommend then, not counting of course the ridiculousness of an army of men and
women being named X-Men, not X-People. Their christening comes at the
end of the film and sounds even more jarring here than it usually does because the
task of announcing the name to the troops has been sneakily given to a female
character – it seems like a strategic directorial and/or writing decision to
silence feminists, but ends up highlighting the series’ innate sexism.
The downslide begins
well before that point though.
The second half of X-Men: Apocalypse is a damp squib in
comparison with the first hour. In terms of storytelling and SFX gimmicks, it
feels as if once they allow us into En Sabah Nur’s bag of tricks, Magneto’s
home and heart, Team Apocalypse does
not know quite what to do with either of them. And so, while the rest of the
X-People… note: yeah, that’s what they will be collectively called henceforth
on this blog, except in the film’s title… As I was saying, while the rest of
the X-People zip around the world, the pace slackens each time Nur and Magneto
get more than a few moments on screen.
This of course is
disappointing considering that Magneto – a sometimes-bad-sometimes-not mutant
with the ability to generate and manipulate powerful magnetic fields – is played
by the charismatic Michael Fassbender who reminds us in those well-handled
opening scenes that he has so much to offer as an actor. It is almost
scandalous that he is wasted thereafter.
The fizzling out of
the fizz in Apocalypse is particularly
surprising since it marks the return to the franchise of director Bryan Singer
whose X-Men (2000) and X2: X-Men United (2003) have been the
best of the lot so far. Perhaps his over-rated X-Men: Days of Future Past was a sign. Apocalypse is the ninth in the series and Singer’s fourth. It is
the least interesting instalment.
The story initially
takes us between Egypt and the US in the 1980s. In Cairo, Nur (Oscar Isaac) rises
from a long deep sleep, while in Westchester County, New York, the telepathic
paraplegic Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) runs his school for the specially
gifted a.k.a. mutants. Xavier remains a pacifist who is keen to bring Magneto
to the good side, but Magneto’s bitterness and grief make him a prime target
for Nur’s fear-mongering and human-bashing.
Nur believes that
humanity was lost during his centuries-long absence, while he lay entombed
alive by his enemies from his previous avatar. He now wants to re-shape the
earth to suit his worldview, which sounds grand, though to be honest the
details are more like wannabe mumbo-jumbo. Nur is not merely a megalomaniac who
believes he is God. He is God. To set the world right, he must
find four lieutenants (the Four Horsemen, a reference drawn from the last book
of the Bible, The Apocalypse of St John The Apostle a.k.a. The Book of
Revelation). While the sub-plots via which he locates them are entertaining
enough, at least two of them turn out to be such lacklustre creatures that you
have to wonder why he bothered with them at all.
The four are: Psylocke, Storm, Angel and Magneto himself. Psylocke’s
energy blade and actress Olivia Munn’s swagger have potential, but she can do
little in the face of the sketchy writing and her colleagues’ lifelessness. Their
dullness is the starting point of the film’s undoing.
Storm’s ability to control weather is as fascinating a superpower as any, yet the characterisation of this mutant has been consistently insipid throughout the series. Watching Alexandra Shipp at work in a role earlier played by Halle Berry is all the evidence you need to know it is not Berry’s fault alone that Storm has been such a bore in all the films so far. It’s the writing, stupid!
The mutants ranged
against them (some are younger versions of seniors seen in earlier films) are
certainly a more appealing lot, though the film is so over-populated that only
three truly stand out: Evan Peters playing Peter Maximoff / Quicksilver who can
move faster than time, Tye Sheridan as Scott Summers / Cyclops from whose eyes
pour out destructive beams of fire and Sophie Turner (Sansa Stark from Game of Thrones) as Jean Grey / Phoenix
who struggles to control her telekinetic powers. For the record, Peters is way
more memorable as Quicksilver than Aaron Taylor-Johnson as the same character in
last year’s Avengers: Age of Ultron
(2015).
The showstopper of
this film is a scene involving Quicksilver with a delightful revisitation of
’80s pop group Eurythmics’ Sweet dreams
are made of this. That the idea is borrowed from a previous X-Film is forgivable since it is still so
amusing. What is inexplicable though is its placement, right in the middle of an
intense scene of mass destruction, like a comical interlude involving Asrani or
Keshto Mukherjee during
gory dishum dishum between the hero and the
villain in a 1970/80s formulaic Bollywood film.
The mutants whose
potential is frittered away in the over-crowding are Nicholas Hoult as Hank
McCoy / Beast, Kodi Smit-McPhee as Kurt Wagner / Nightcrawler and the
always-nice-to-watch-yet-wasted-here Jennifer Lawrence playing the
shape-shifting Mystique.
Perhaps the problem
is that there have been too many X-Films
already and they have all been making so much money that the producers rushed
into this one. There is certainly a great deal of mindlessness in the way X-Men: Apocalypse confuses the
introduction of multiple characters for excitement. En Sabah Nur and his Four
Horsemen are such anti-climactic villains. For someone who is supposed to be
God, Nur seems pretty helpless in the face of the combined force of the good
mutants, and at least two of his soldiers seem to look on more than join him in
battle.
As criminal as the
under-utilisation of Fassbender and Lawrence is the cursory treatment of themes
that made the first two films so relevant: prejudice, fear of the other, a
celebration of heterogeneity. Many viewers consider the X-Films a metaphor for homophobia. In a post-9/11 age, they could
be seen too as a metaphor for Islamophobia. A year in which Donald Trump could
well become the next President of the most powerful nation on the globe is a year
crying out for a solid, well-thought-out X-Film, not this generic affair. Bryan Singer,
how could you?
Rating
(out of five): **1/2
CBFC Rating (India):
|
U/A
|
Running time:
MPAA Rating (US):
|
145 minutes
PG-13 (for sequences of
violence, action and destruction, brief strong language and some suggestive
images)
|
Release date in US:
|
May 27, 2016
|
Related
article by Anna MM Vetticad: “Boys will
be boys and girls will be afterthoughts: The hyper-masculine world of superhero
films”
Photograph
courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Men:_Apocalypse
