When I saw this film, I hadn’t seen Days of Future Past, although I had seen First Class and the original trilogy of X-Men films plus Deadpool in February, so I was looking
forward to another X-Men outing but also unsure if this would be the misstep
too far for the reboot. The ancient Egyptian opening only intensified this
early feeling of scepticism. It reminded me too much of the grandly hammy
openings of The Mummy and The Mummy Returns, and don’t get me
wrong, I enjoy those films, but I enjoy them because they are pure cheese. I
wasn’t committed to the film until after this bit had transitioned away and the
background to Apocalypse’s revival had been set up.
Magneto continues to get absolutely no breaks in his attempt
to get some normalcy back and distance himself from being a supervillain; in
this film, having settled anonymously in Poland where he has a wife and a young
daughter who herself has some mutant powers (control over animals), his new
family are killed accidentally when he’s exposed to the local authorities as
the fugitive Magneto. Charles has merrily gotten on with his school for baby
mutants, with the latest recruits being the hapless Scott Summers, who discovered
his powers when cornered by a bully in the toilets at his school, and Jean Grey
(Sophie Turner who plays Sansa Stark in Game of Thrones) who scares everyone
else with her nightmares which shake the whole school. Mystique is working
alone, rescuing mutants like Nightcrawler who have been oppressed and enslaved.
I thought the new takes on familiar characters were
interesting. Nightcrawler offered comic relief alternating between plucky and
timid; Angel was reimagined as a cagefighter in a ring that sets imprisoned
mutants against each other; Jean impressed with the final, dramatic display of
her Phoenix powers, with much less drippy romance angst than Famke Jansen in
the third original X-Men film; and Quicksilver made a pretty sharp appearance
as Magneto’s chippy long-lost teenage son, completely casual about his
super-speed powers to the point of pure comedy. I give it 8/10.
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