

Disney has not officially announced plans for the X-Men yet, but directors and producers have dropped hints about how the mutants might be integrated into the world guarded by Black Panther, Captain Marvel and the Guardians of the Galaxy. But the prequel timeline is finally butting up against the original timeline, presenting an opportunity for a reboot.ĭisney (which owns Marvel Studios) and Fox recently merged, which means that the X-Men will be able to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe and appear in big screen Avengers movies for the first time ever. They’ve never rebooted but instead opted to make prequels with younger actors taking on iconic roles like Magneto and Professor X. Since X-Men was released in 2000, Fox has presented one continuous storyline for the X-Men movies. This will almost certainly be the last time Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy and Jennifer Lawrence in the franchise. It even gets spry with Quicksilver’s (Evan Peters) return - his ability to move at inhuman speeds lends his character a unique comic sensibility as he flicks people out of harm’s way.Dark Phoenix was already likely to be the last chapter in the main X-Men saga, and the movie’s dismal opening weekend has likely sealed the superheroes’ fate. The film balances its self-seriousness (featuring heartbreaking backstory side plots) with lighthearted humour. It’s easy to forgive these sins, perhaps because X-Men: Apocalypse seems to know exactly what it’s doing and feels comfortable and confident in its retro, ‘80s-set world. And yes, characters’ eyes turn beady black when they feel Apocalypse’s strength coursing through their veins and, of course, Xavier’s pithy yet earnest save-us-all speech tells off Apocalypse for not having any friends.

Yes, it forces you to ponder the boring, technical aspects of its world-building (like zeroing in on the “How strong is Apocalypse, though? How many X-Men need to hit him at once?”). Yes, the film is a return to old-school comic-book storytelling. The rest of the crew, including Raven, Hank/The Beast (Nicholas Hoult), Scott/Cyclops (Tye Sheridan) and Jean Grey (Sophie Turner), must defeat the undefeatable before it’s too late. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.

His four disciples - among them a recently traumatized Magneto and a surprise X-Men character - help him try to take over Charles Xavier’s (James McAvoy) consciousness to effectively rule the world through mental manipulation. Apocalypse’s grandiose claims about people worshipping “false gods” delivered in a disappointed, guttural register - surely an Internet meme in the making - is reminiscent of old-school comic book villainy. The facile glimpse we get of Ancient Egypt shows nothing more than a fascist regime reminiscent of Nazism. Nothing about the titular villain’s story is genuinely interesting. Entombed for thousands of years, this supposed god is brought back to life by sun-rays that activate his special hieroglyphic-plastered tomb block thingy.

Article content FoxĪpocalypse (Oscar Isaac, barely recognizable under all that Blue Man makeup) is a super-mutant from ancient Egypt who can absorb and amplify other mutants’ powers.
