Deuce's Wild

Being a fan of the comics most of my life, and trying to give the movies the benefit of the doubt, I’ve been able to stomach most of the films in the X-Men franchise, but even as they stated in this movie, the second one is always the best, and the third one is usually the worst. As much as I can forgive a lot of the creative liberties taken, as a fan, I feel more betrayed than ever. That is a strong word, and I’m not even saying that this is the worst one, but this movie had a ton of squandered potential. There were so many opportunities, given some of my issues with the last few films, I have reason to believe that Simon Kinberg doesn’t really respect the subject matter (to which I think Fantastic Four is an excellent example of, just saying). Before I get into spoiler territory, I am going to summarize my feelings going into the movie, and what I expected.

Days of Future Past was, in my opinion, one of the best X-Men films, with plenty of action, and a complicated plot that was based off of an iconic story line from the comics. The Quicksilver sequence was an instant favorite, and seeing the lines blur between right and wrong as Magneto and Xavier struggle to find a way to keep the targets off their backs while also trying to save the future made for a really fun movie. The original cast coming back for the future story line, with the action and plot evenly distributed between both timelines never proved to be too much, but also made for a really fun time travel story that worked. Overall, I really enjoyed it, and had high hopes for this movie at first, but the closer it got to release, the more I had my doubts.

This film covered a lot of familiar ground, and having come right off the heels of a film that melded the former and current trilogies seamlessly, they had a job to do, honoring the films that came before, while still giving themselves somewhat of an out by way of the end of Days of Future Past altering the timeline. This would allow us to be introduced to characters like Nightcrawler and Angel, as introduced in the original trilogy, but in new ways befitting this story, at an earlier point in their lives. But wait, wasn’t Warren Worthington a little young in The Last Stand to be old enough to fight in some basement cage match int eh 80s?? If they are taking liberties such as making Alex the older Summers brother, then surely changing the age of another character is not a big deal, but now they are flat-out contradicting the previous incarnation of the character with no explanation, or legitimate reason that could have been ironed out in the production process. That just strikes me as a bit insulting to the legacy of the films they have already shown to work so hard to preserve. Nightcrawler’s appearance in Apocalypse though, still absolutely works with his original appearance in X2. He even has similar markings, which goes to show that there was some respect given tot he previous films at a point in the production process.

That being said, I am going to start and get into more spoiler-y territory now. At the end of Days of Future Past, Mystique has taken the form of Styker, and carts Wolverine off to what we assume is Weapon X. While this is ten years later, and I’m such much has happened, none of this is covered, and when Mystique and Styker come face to face (for what seemed like a forced wolverine cameo sequence that added about fifteen minutes to the movie) the whole situation was glazed over with a single comment about him singling her out among the prisoners, and then nothing special ever came out of it. In fact, that plot pretty much dropped off the face of the Earth. As much as I like Hugh Jackman, Wolverine did not need to be in this movie. The weird scene where Jean frees him makes him seem like a creepy uncle anyway, so I imagine if they had cut that out, they could have kept the mall sequence (the only part of the movie where Jubilee would have been relevant, as it was confirmed she used her powers in that scene) which would have added to the development of characters that were actually important to this story.

The only other real relevance of the Weapon X sequence was the after credit scene, where men in suits come to collect a weird vial of Weapon X juice of whatever the hell they took. Either way, Adamantium doesn’t come in a little glass jar, so besides the possibility of X-23 showing up in Old Man Logan, this was not very exciting. Adding the fact the “Essex Corp” was inscribed on the briefcase, this proved to be the most half-assed Mr. Sinister tease that I could have ever imagined. NEVER once in the comics or cartoon would Nathaniel Essex send a group of suits to collect research for him. If he doesn’t send one of his many ragtag groups, such as the Marauders, or the Nasty Boys, to name a few, he goes himself, and salivates all of the scientific goldmine he hopes to uncover. That is precisely what makes Mr. Sinister so damn creepy to begin with. He is the ultimate Mad Scientist, not some corporate douche bag. He’s got far too much bravado to resort to something so mundane as that. Obviously, this little stunt got under my skin, but one way to make up for that would be to cast Bryan Cranston in the role (as he stated he would already be interested in playing). That would just be awesome on a lot of levels.

Next up, I have my single issue with the otherwise respectable Nightcrawler. In the first half of the film, he had quite a decent presence. Teaming up with Mystique, fighting Angel, and joining up with the Xavier School. For the entire second half of the film though, pretty much all he did was teleport Scott and Jean around. He had a lame attempt at a one-liner at one point, but Quicksilver had a couple of this in this movie too (the dialogue in general was less than inspiring). I would have liked to see him be a little more active, but as least they didn’t overdo it with him. Mystique being or not being his mother wasn’t dealt with at all, but neither was any potential spark at an Angel/Psylocke romance, which would have been awesome!

Bringing me to my next issue. Psylocke. Starting out working as an enforcer for Caliban of all people, she doesn’t have a British accent, which made me sad, right off the bat. Secondly, we don’t even start off with a psychic knife. We jump right into psychic long-ass sword and then evolve into psychic whip for the final conflict. When the hell does Psylocke ever use a psychic whip?! In the comics, Betsy is also very quippy. Her wit is part of her sex appeal, but in the movie, she was dry and rigid. Also, as she took her leave from the battle at the end, she gave a weird over the shoulder look back, like she had some ‘sinister’ plan lined up for revenge or something. So Psylocke is a bonafide bad guy then?? WHY?! She is one of the coolest X-Men, in my opinion, and this movie did her no justice, despite the decent casting of Olivia Munn.

Angel is up next in my cross-hairs. To start with, I will go back to my earlier comment about the continuity. There is no way this is the same Warren Worthington from X-Men: The Last Stand, but due to lazy film making, we are just going to have to live with that... Moving on. Being a cage fighter, and a rather good one, not only does not fit into his character at all, but what was that scene supposed to prove? It seemed a lot like a cry out to the Wolverine cage fight in the original X-Men, but with far less meaning behind it. The Blob cameo, in full costume no less, was a nice touch, but other than that, the scene was not very impressive, and other than the weird entrance of Nightcrawler from a chained up coffin, didn’t really do anything to progress the story other than lump all of these downtrodden mutants together in the same fight club. We could have seen that demonstrated in a much more convincing way, that might have actually made us feel for the characters more too, but that seems like asking too much I guess.

My biggest problem with Angel though, and with Apocalypse’s other Horsemen, was how they were transformed. In the comics, each Horseman is put through a rigorous reprogramming process that alters their mind and body, making them subservient to Apocalypse, and giving them an extracurricular ability to help bring forth the survival of the fittest. In this movie, Archangel was given his metal wings in a barn... by a flick of Apocalypse’s wrist... over about two minutes... and afterward, Angel was happy to join up, even though he turned his back on Apocalypse and was wing-raped just moments prior. Storm, Psylocke, and even Magneto didn’t need much convincing to join up, but Warren’s turn was awfully quick considering what happened just before. Long story short (too late) none of the Horsemen lore from the comics was honored, and even Apocalypse’s own power set, as dangerous as it was, did not fit his comic book counterpart, but rather seemed like Sylar from Heroes. I don’t even remember what happened with Archangel at the end. I think he just flew off into the sunset or some shit, but I guess that didn’t matter to the story either.

Quicksilver had one of the best scenes in any X-Men movie, and of course Apocalypse had to try and top that somehow. What better way than to have the X-Mansion blow up, forcing Pietro... excuse me, ‘Peter’ to rescue all of the students with his super speed before the school is blown to shit. One of the biggest missed opportunities in the entire film was right here. Over the course of a few minutes, we see time slow down as Q zips around, safely evacuating the students from the mansion. What we don’t see is one single significant cameo of ANY of the DOZENS of mutant students and X-Men from the comics. Every single one of the students was a normal looking person. No green, scaly Anole. No Glob Herman. No Beak. No nobody. I’m sorry, I thought this movie was set at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, not some upstate New York prep school.