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Also discussed this episode: Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising (2016), The Jungle Book (2016), Meet the Patels (2015), Weiner (2016), How to Plan an Orgy in a Small Town (2016)
Is it sad that Im listening to this podcast with the spoilers because I have 0 interest in seeing this movie? Ive liked most of the x men movies to one degree or another but this franchise is exhausting. It disapoints me because I want to be excited about big summer movies but its all so numbing to me now.
ReplyDeleteJust shockingly bad. The Quicksilver scene could be the most tone deaf scene I've seen in a movie this year. I don't mind them doing another Quicksilver sequence, but who thought it was a good idea to put it at the emotional low point? Ugh this movie was trash.
ReplyDeleteI liked the moments of Xavier stammering around Moira. It was one of the only parts of the movie that felt like they had a pulse. I want to see a romantic comedy of this. Rated X of course. For Xmen.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was fine. I consider The Last Stand much more of a train wreck than this, and I don't even flat out dislike that one either. What I didn't like? Well, there were only two lines of dialogue that really stuck in my craw. One was when Erik reminded his wife, "Remember when I told you my secret the first day I met you?" Was that really needed? I always think lines like that are clunky and don't work. The second line of dialogue, worse than the other, was when Head Charles tells Head En Sabuh Nur, "You're in my house now." Whoa, was that bad. Why would Charles Xavier say such a thing? Ugh. Regardless of the fair pass I'm giving the movie, I think it's clear that this is Singer's Last Stand, and it creates a myth now, that every official third X-Men movie may end up being less than exceptional.
ReplyDeleteI could go through all my observations I gleaned from the movie, how I agree with or disagree with some points made in the podcast, but that would take a while and I think we'd all rather celebrate Junesploitation; me included.
I'll only make one observation. It's been established that X-men (2000) began this new modern comic book movie phase we're in. It's interesting to come to this new movie with that in mind. We start off with Charles Xavier voice-over, and in his narration he describes exceptional beings who may have "flown too close to the sun." It's the same notion Lex Luthor has when he laments over Zod’s corpse in BvS. Beast tells Mystique about how he'd like the X-men to be a symbol of hope for the whole world. Again, DC. And at the end of the movie, we have a situation torn almost whole cloth from the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron. Here we have a film from the franchise that started this newest wave of the comic book subgenre, making allusions to the franchises that came in its wake. The snake has officially swallowed its tail. I think we've witnessed the end of one 16 year cumulative phase of this subgenre. Maybe this means Suicide Squad will be the beginning of the next one.
I was seriously concerned that Singer might pull an Ultron/Fant4stic and cut to credits before Mystique could finish saying "X-Men". It could be the cross-franchise running gag of superhero movies. :P
DeleteI enjoyed the movie a lot, and thought it solid overall, though Magneto's abrupt offscreen retirement from his White House lawn promise of leading mutants to supremacy was head-scratching at best. This movie probably should have been one big X-Men/Brotherhood battle, with maybe an Apocalypse tease at the end. That said, the pizza-eating dog alone was better than all of BvS, so all in all it was a ticket well bought.
I really enjoyed the movie but Patrick is right they covered all the same beats they've been covering. They brought nothing new to the table. They still have yet to figure out what to do with Storm other than have her make faces.
ReplyDeleteOh yes, this can be the enjoyers thread. I had such a great time watching this movie. Is it a mess? No doubt about it. Is some of it just bad? I can even agree to that. But a fun schlocky corny mess of a movie was just what I needed at the time, and I left the theater incredibly happy.
DeleteProbably blasphemous to a lot of people, but I would go see Apocalypse again over Civil War. I've been ready to complain about superhero-fatigue for a while now, but for some reason I keep seeing them and I keep leaving having had a good time.
Agreed. Agreed. And...... agreed.
ReplyDeleteWhat a massive mess. And JLaw was so terrible she was like nails on a chalkboard. I was not a fan, despite also liking all the other X-Men films (Orgins not withstanding). Great show gents!
Mark Ahn's Nerd Voice of Authority should take its place alongside Gentleman Timothy Dalton and Sad Sam Mendes.
ReplyDeleteFYI - I'm referring to the voice Mark lapses into when he talks about someone demanding a full accounting of Apocalypse's powers.
DeleteThe Nerd Voice of Authority and the Quibbler are the best at parties.
DeleteI think I'm on record in another thread saying that I've had issues with all the X-men movies. They've done a lot of super hero movies in general and most of them have some amazing sequences but to me never really add up to great movies (mostly due to plot and character issues).
ReplyDeleteX-men Apocalypse doesn't even have cool scenes or good character moments to fall back on though. It's says something that the four nameless Horsemen at the beginning are more interesting in their small bit of screen time than their modern-day counterparts. It feels like they painted themselves into a corner with the post-credit scene of DoFP promising Apocalypse, and then when it came time to write the screenplay they had no idea what they actually wanted to do with him.
It seems to be a common misconception that this movie is somehow based on the Age of Apocalypse story from the comics. That story actually takes place in an alternate timeline. Xavier's son goes back into the past and accidentally fucks up and kills Xavier, causing Magneto to form the X-men who end up being unable to stop Apocalypse from taking over North America and turning it into a dystopia where characters you knew of as heroes ended up as villains and vice versa (the whole X-men line was replaced for several months with new books taking place in this alternate time).
Even in this line-wide crossover ostensibly centered around Apocalypse, he actually doesn't play a particularly large part in it until the end. The fact is that I can't really think of any classic storylines that actually feature Apocalypse as a character.
Patrick mentioned that the joke about the 3rd movie always sucking in the movie was supposed to be referring to The Last Stand, but everyone that I saw the movie with laughed and thought they were talking about this movie (Apocalypse) as the 3rd movie of the new trilogy. If that is the case then they were right on the money.
ReplyDeleteI had a great time with this movie in the moment, but after listening to you guys rip it to shreds I'm more so-so on it now. I still think I would enjoy watching it again, but there are no doubt a lot of issues. Is it Green Lantern bad? Is it Batman and Robin bad? Is it X-Men: The Last Stand bad? I would say NO to all 3. I still enjoy The Last Stand by the way. I think that while it's disappointing that they could have done Apocalypse better, they also had to fit that insane character into this universe that they are so deeply invested in already. They probably shouldn't have done this story at all. The set up was all wrong. I give them credit for trying and still think it could have been much worse.
This movie just seems like it was rushed. They needed to develop everyone better. There's just too many characters to establish and not enough time. Would this have been better as two movies?
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DeleteIt's always tricky when superhero movies try to adapt well-known story arcs from the comics. Someone wanting to read the "Age of Apocalypse" story today would need to buy FOUR large trade paperbacks, which clock in at about 300 pages each. There's just no way to make something that sprawling into a movie that has a clean through-line.
ReplyDeleteTake the first Iron Man movie. I could be bummed that they took Obadiah Stane - one of the all-time great villians in the comics - and turned him into a sketchily drawn disgruntled CEO. But the comic book Stane's plot was developed over the course of several years. To do that version of the character justice would require several movies. That's why I'm starting to think that TV is the best venue for superheros - it's tailor made for long-form storytelling.
I don't know what this says about me, but I love these episodes where someone totally changes their mind about the movie by the end, the most famous example being the Green Lantern podcast (though I like when it happens the other way too, like when JB seemed to convince Patrick that The Deer Hunter is indeed a masterpiece).
ReplyDelete