Welcome to The Daily Cup a movie blog/writing project by Kyle B. Dekker, presented by Hot Chocolate Media. You can read series concept here. The basic rules, Kyle must watch 365 movies in 2018 and write about all of them. 292 of them have to be movies he's never seen before. Thanks for reading.
You ever watch a movie and realize you can predict every beat before it happens? What if that movie has an incredible cast, great effects, and a solid score? That movie can’t be that bad? Most of western storytelling is repackaging the monomyth, cosmic man, folk hero or some other trope of classical European mythology. And if done well these are usually just fine films and worth a watch. Other times, they are so predictable, they are just kinda boring. They look good, but that’s about it, the Peeps of film. X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) is one of those films.
This film is the story of Apocalypse or En Sabah Nur (Oscar Isaac) the original first mutant, who gave all other mutants their powers. He’s immortal or sorts, utilizing some space age tech is ancient Egypt to make himself look like Poe Dameron, and immortal. But the oppressed Egyptians revolt and bury him and his followers deep underground. Fast forward to the 1980s (woah dude!) and Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) is knee deep in the Professor part of his name, not so much on the X part. That’s right this is the third of the reboot X-Men movies and they still haven’t actually formed the X-Men. But hey, they’ve finally added Scott Summers/Cyclops (Tye Sheridan) and Jean Grey (Sophie Turner). Anyway Apocalypse plans to Rebirth The Earth ™ where only the strong survive, with the help of his four horsemen of the apocalypse Magneto (Michael Fassbender), Psylocke (Olivia Munn), Storm (Alexandra Shipp), and Angel (Ben Hardy). The rest of the movie is mutants fighting mutants, and Apocalypse killing every human in Cairo Egypt and nobody says a word about the mass murder. The good guys win, Jean shows off the power of the Phoenix (foreshadowing sequels ahh yeah) and we get some pretty awesome depictions of our favorite mutants powers on screen.
The most disappointing part of this movie there isn’t really anything overwhelmingly bad or dumb. Well except for the whole “let’s wedge Wolverine in here, and the Weapon X/Colonel Stryker stuff.” I could’ve done without that, as it was nothing more than a plot point to help newly introduced (to this series of X-Men movies) Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee). These new actors in this familiar role have some chops, it would’ve been nice if they were given some agency other than their powers working only at key moments for coolsies. Nothing surprises, this movie is just feels like a solid four-part episode of the X-Men animated series with modern special effects. It’s not bad, it’s just disappointing after the promise of X-Men: First Class.
This is a perfectly serviceable X-Men movie. For fans of these heroes you get all of the empty calories you want. Cool powers, one liners, sexy people in black leather jumpsuits, bald Professor X, and the first appearence of some mutants we’ve wanted to see on screen n Psylocke and Jubilee. Ok, just Psylocke. We do get another truly fantastic performance from Evan Peters as Quicksilver with another gorgeous slow mo scene of awesome. I’m totally down for a Magneto/Quicksilver father/son road trip movie, but we don’t always get what we want. Frankly we don’t need more X-Men movies if they are going to be as paint by the numbers as this one was.
Tally
Movies new to me watched: 48/292
Other movies: 15/73
Total movies watched: 63/365
Have your own thoughts or opinions on this movie? Comment below or contact Kyle at kyle@hotchocolatemedia.net or on Twitter at @kbdekker.