#APOCALYPSE COW BOOK SERIES#
A series that could once be counted on for at least glimmers of freshness had totally given up.
#APOCALYPSE COW BOOK MOVIE#
But by and large, these films were at least mostly original, like opening the first X-Men with a flashback to Auschwitz or the use of a 1960s setting in X-Men: First Class, or even how time travel was used in X-Men: Days of Future Past.īut in Apocalypse, originality has been replaced with derivative apocalyptic imagery you could find in any Roland Emmerich disaster movie while Oscar Isaac delivers forgettable dialogue in terrible Ivan Ooze cosplay. Just look at those black leather outfits the characters waltzed around in the first few movies, which bore more than a passing resemblance to costumes worn in the Matrix films. The main X-Men movies have never been entirely bastions of originality. The concept of X-Men: Apocalypse leaning heavily on the influences of other superhero movies is, admittedly, not a shocking development. Without any characters to get invested in, all this carnage just registers as meaningless. In trying to create its own Battle of New York, Apocalypse merely proves you can annihilate a real-world city in stunning detail and inspire no reaction whatsoever from the viewer. There is no chance for distinct personalities of the characters or unique artistic visions to come through here, as the desire to copy other major superhero movies has become too overwhelming. Even later X-Men offshoot Deadpool 2 would tip its hat towards the idea of mutants being reflections of queer oppression with the character of Firefist experiencing abuse in a “mutant re-education center” that resembles a conversion camp.Īs the finale sequence drones on, it becomes glaringly apparent that all this movie wants to do is emulate the style of the Avengers movies, complete with lots of CG mayhem representing a world-ending threat. A scene in X2 of Bobby coming out to his parents especially resonated as a reflection of queer reality rather than the typical flight of fancy you’d expect from a comic book movie. The first two X-Men films made no bones about being an allegory for the experiences of LGBTQIA+ individuals. At times, Apocalypse feels like a clip show of past X-Men movies the cinematic equivalent of a greatest hits cover album.Įven with all these repeated beats from older movies, one of the few consistently distinctive elements of this incarnation of the X-Men has been entirely dropped. Quicksilver ( Evan Peters) is brought back for another slow-motion set piece set to a period-era tune while Magneto is once again a good person until he abruptly isn’t. Troubles with giving weighty material to characters of color aren’t the only thing Apocalypse has decided to port over from past movies. The X-Men movies were supposed to represent the struggles of ostracized voices, yet Apocalypse continues the troubling trend of this series largely ignoring non-white perspectives. How depressing that Storm has even less to do in a 2016 movie than she did in her initial appearance back in 2000. It also must be said that Isaac, Condor, and Shipp having nothing to do in this movie reinforces the X-Men franchise’s overall problem of giving performers of color absolutely nothing of substance to work with. Isaac is buried under pounds of prosthetics and his entire character is basically a monster who wants to destroy things because reasons. This poor actor had more concrete characters to play in Body of Lies and The Bourne Legacy than he did with this forgettable villain. Xavier, Magneto, and Mystique are the center of the story for the third movie in a row, while Hugh Jackman's Wolverine even comes back for a baffling set piece in which he feels completely out of place.Īnd while future To All the Boys I've Loved Before star Lana Condor barely gets anything to do as Jubilee, the most tragic victim of X-Men: Apocalypse’s lack of interest in new characters is Oscar Isaac's titular villain. What’s old is new again and these characters are again upstaged by other figures in the story. Cyclops and the other new versions of familiar mutants don’t have much time to register as distinct personalities.
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