Watched X-Men: Apocalypse last, having not seen it since got it on Blu in late 2016. Obviously it has its flaws but I enjoyed it more than I remembered I did the first time round.
Just a few points/questions though-
-When all the nukes are launched they ask "who's launching them?" and they say "then men are!" ie the men on the submarines. I just wondered is that even possible? I would have thought they'd need a passcode or something from their higher ups, the President or whoever. So men working on nuclear submarines can just launch nukes whenever they feel like it?
- The death of Havok is done really strange. Like did something happen in the editing room? I had to rewind it a couple of times to even get what happened. He fires his beam, it hits the Blackbird, you see Hank recoil and then that's it. Later Quicksilver is like "I think I got everyone" and you're not even sure if he's meant to be dead or not. It's all edited like maybe he'll come back at the end or something. Then by the actually end you just have to go "oh I guess he did die then. Ok."
I mean I don't expect a shot of one our heroes being killed by an explosion in slow motion, but some kinda shot seeing him enveloped would have done.
- How many people died in this movie? During the last segment the entire world is basically being pulled apart. We see whole skyscrapers and buildings in New York and Sydney torn to shreds- but it's not like it's only meant to be happening there. Wasn't that supposed to be happening literally everywhere on Earth? Every city, town, village undergoing damage like that. Surely millions upon millions, 10s even 100s of millions died? Even in Cairo alone it must have been thousands killed when Apocalypse remodels the entire city.
At the end it's like "oh repairs are underway", oh so it's all ok now. That's why its so funny when Magneto is just allowed to walk away again at the end, with the "goodbye old friend" routine yet again. There's zero consequences for anything.
Anyway, enjoyed it. But do find parts of it odd.
I also enjoyed it more on a rewatch. Apocalypse himself was still a damp squib, unworthy of our fear, and I would have preferred the 'original' horsemen rather than trying to copy the Civil War concept with all X-men. I think if they had not made his abilities so 'all or nothing', gave him a costume that allowed him to be more physical, and underscored that he was testing them, it might have made him more intriguing.
I still felt that Angel got stitched up in a similar way to Phoenix in X3 by removing the emotional heart of his story (along with his personality) and by not sticking with the concept that Storm flies really clumsily so that being able to fly remains cool in itself.
Even the comics are really vague on the consequences of mass destruction and murder when you look at Emma Frost, who is essentially an unconvicted serial killer, who becomes accepted as a bitchy team-mate, but then the Avengers and Justice League also destroy buildings without a care so I think gross negligence is acceptable across the super hero divide.
I thought the final fight scenes with Magneto just levitating in place were poorly paced but battle pacing has always been a problem in X-men movies. They need to do faster cuts l think but a lot of the characters have slow powers and they even film Quicksilver in slow motion.
I felt that the emotional content that should have been Angel's was instead squandered quite laboriously on Quicksilver's daddy issues, made worse because Magneto was redeemed (again) at the end and the just hung around like a bad smell.
I do think that the continued presence of Magneto and Mystique as main characters is now a distraction that is not allowing the franchise to grow. While I like both the actors, they are so expensive that they are forcing themselves to the fore to justify the cost when they are actually unnecessary to the success of the franchise. I did like the death of Magneto's family but it felt like tagging it onto the Apocalypse story did no justice to either plot.
I'm still very much looking forward to the sequel but I'm concerned again that Mystique and Magneto are again going to be too prominent in a story where they really need not feature at all.
Havok's 'death' was kept intentionally vague in my opinion.
