Top 3 Reasons why 'X-Men: Apocalypse' is being Criminally Undervalued

If you were to ask me what my most anticipated film of the summer is now that Captain America: Civil War has already come out, I would tell you that my pick would be X-Men: Apocalypse. Following in the footsteps of 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past, which was not only the best X-Men film to date but also one of the best superhero films to date period, this new film sees the X-Men take on their most dangerous antagonist yet; the first mutant, En Sabah Nur AKA Apocalypse. Once again directed by the franchise’s creator Bryan Singer, the film looks to be yet another highly entertaining installment of a franchise that has very much redeemed itself in recent years following some mediocre entries. And yet I wonder… why is this film not getting a lot of hype online? Yes, despite all of the good things that have happened to this franchise recently, for some reason this new installment is being criminally undervalued online, especially when compared to the other superhero films this year like Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Captain America: Civil War. So today on Rhode Island Movie Corner, I’m going to go through the Top 3 reasons why X-Men: Apocalypse is not getting the attention online that it deserves. And no, none of these three points have anything to do with the film’s current critical reception which, based on its current RT score of 52% (at the time I am writing this), aren’t very pretty to say the least. But hey that didn’t stop me from seeing, and liking, Batman v Superman and it sure isn’t going to stop me from seeing this film opening weekend. Instead these are 3 arguments that I’ve been seeing online these past few months that have undoubtedly had a negative effect on the film’s reputation.

3. BRYAN SINGER

(2020 UPDATE: When this was first published, there had, of course, been some discussion over some of the sexual abuse lawsuits that Bryan Singer had gotten involved in at the time. However, this was before A.) the Weinstein epidemic was being properly addressed across the industry and B.) More allegations against Singer were made public around the time that Bohemian Rhapsody came out, so I'll openly admit that I didn't pay as much attention towards moments like this as I do now, and quite frankly, should've been doing all along. Thus, the following segment in which I heavily praise Singer's contributions to the superhero genre is not one that I'd reiterate nowadays.) 

Bryan Singer is very much one of the original pioneers of the modern superhero film genre. His first X-Men film back in 2000 was quite literally the first big superhero film of the 21^st century and it was a solid critical/commercial success upon its initial release. He then followed that up with an even more successful sequel in the form of 2003’s X2: X-Men United. And then he left to go direct Superman Returns… and as a result, the X-Men franchise started to go downhill with the highly disappointing X-Men: The Last Stand and the incredibly mediocre X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Thankfully, Singer returned to the franchise in 2011, albeit only as a producer/co-writer, for X-Men: First Class and then came back full-time 3 years later to direct Days of Future Past. By that point, the franchise had finally redeemed itself after its lackluster installments while also doing the smart move of pulling a continuity retcon that erased the events of those two films from the series’ official ‘timeline’. So in short, the series’ best installments have been the ones that Singer has been heavily involved with… and yet I find that his handling of the franchise hasn’t gone over well with ‘everybody’. Namely it seems like the big thing that most fans have been critical of in regards to his work on the franchise is how he has portrayed certain characters, specifically the fact that Wolverine has pretty much been the main character of the entire franchise at the cost of other characters’ screen-time, most infamously Cyclops. And while it is true that Wolverine has been focused on a lot in these films, I do think that the most recent films (not counting his second spin-off, The Wolverine) have done a much better job of giving other characters more to do. Case in point, while the main plot of Days of Future Past revolved around Wolverine going back in time, a plot-point that differed heavily from the comics, he actually wasn’t the ‘main character’ in that story; instead it was Xavier. And both First Class and Apocalypse have gone one step further by only having him appear via cameos, allowing the other members of the cast to have more opportunities to shine.

Ultimately though I have to agree with my friend Matthew Goudreau on the following argument; Bryan Singer really has been one of the genre’s best directors, up there with some of the more recent standouts like Joss Whedon, Christopher Nolan, and the Russo brothers. Of course we’ve already gone over the fact that he helped kick-start the genre’s modern era with the original X-Men. Without it, we probably wouldn’t be at where we are today as far as the genre’s most recent efforts are concerned. But probably one of the most interesting things to note about Singer’s work on the franchise is that, when he first started back in 2000 with the original X-Men film, he wasn’t actually that familiar with the franchise. In fact, as shown in the first film’s bonus features (on the X-Men 1.5 DVD release, to be precise), most of the cast were generally unfamiliar with the comics as well. And while obviously nowadays that would be a major cause of concern for fans due to the risk of the films straying heavily from their source material, ultimately it didn’t really affect the film that much, nor did it happen with X2. And I think it’s safe to say that as the series has gone on, Singer has become much more familiar with the comics, and yes I say that even when taking into account that Days of Future Past wasn’t a direct adaptation of the storyline that it was based on. So in short, I don’t think Singer gets as much credit as he deserves as far as his contributions to the superhero genre are concerned. You could say that he is the ‘unsung hero’ of superhero films and I salute him for all that he’s done for the genre.

2. APOCALYPSE’S LOOK

As many of you are no doubt aware, probably the biggest controversy surrounding this film was the result of when Entertainment Weekly released its ‘First Look’ coverage of the film back in July of last year, which included a shot of Oscar Isaac in costume as the film’s big bad Apocalypse. The internet subsequently tore this pic to shreds, making countless comparisons between Apocalypse and Ivan Ooze, the villain of the 1995 Mighty Morphin Power Rangers film, namely due to the fact that Apocalypse looked very purple-ish in the photo in contrast to the comics in which he looks blue. Now this isn’t the first time that a situation like this has happened to the X-Men franchise. In fact, the same exact thing happened with the previous film. Back in January 2014 when Empire Magazine unveiled a series of covers to commemorate X-Men: Days of Future Past, a lot of fanboys were very critical of the cover that showcased Evan Peters’ version of the character Quicksilver. Basically the fanboys argued that this new Quicksilver looked way too cheesy with his silver jacket, goggles, headphones, etc. Thankfully a lot of these critics were silenced when the film came out, as Quicksilver’s admittedly brief but undeniably legendary action sequence in the Pentagon proved to be one of the many highlights of the film. So now the same thing has been happening with X-Men: Apocalypse as the film’s main villain was heavily mocked in the months leading up to the film’s release just because of one photo. And while I am aware that some of the film’s current reviews haven’t been very positive towards the character’s role in the film, all of the pre-release backlash was pretty stupid if you ask me.

I mean these photos were released before the first official trailer was even released. So clearly, it wasn’t the fault of the filmmakers for how this whole thing turned out. Obviously not a lot of visual effect work had been done for the film yet so clearly Apocalypse wasn’t yet ‘fully developed’ from a visual standpoint. I mean, if you ask me, it looks like the purple hue that Apocalypse had in that photo was pretty much entirely due to whatever the lighting conditions were like at the time that the photo was taken (according to a recent quote from Oscar Isaac, the scene in question that this photo was taken from is one where Apocalypse and his minions are coming out of a portal that was lit purple). Because given what we’ve seen from the recent trailers, it looks like Apocalypse is going to look much more like he does in the comics than the internet had initially suspected based solely on that first photo. Heck, I also got to give the filmmakers a lot of credit because Oscar Isaac looks quite unrecognizable as the ‘First Mutant’. So in short, this is just yet another example of fans being WAY too judgmental about a superhero film before they even see it. Obviously as we all know, most of this prejudgment usually stems from superhero film castings. Whenever someone is cast in a leading role in one of these films, they are always subjected to much scrutiny regardless of how ‘good’ or how ‘bad’ their performances turn out, with the most prime/infamous example of course being when Ben Affleck was cast as Batman in Batman v Superman. And in the case of this whole Apocalypse thing, the main source of the internet’s over-reactions… was simply due to one bad photo. Ai yi yi… (and no, that was not a reference to Power Rangers)

  

1. ‘IT’S NOT DOING ENOUGH TO STAND OUT’

Oh boy, I got to address that damn ‘superhero fatigue’ argument again… dammit! Anyone who knows me knows that I can’t stand this argument, mainly due to the fact that there’s even an argument like this at all. Since the beginning of last year, there’s been a growing band of critics who have begun to condemn the superhero genre, which I find is mostly just due to the fact that these films have been so gosh darn successful these past few years. But considering that most of the superhero films released since 2008 have been at least ‘good’, I don’t see why them being successful is a ‘bad thing’. Thankfully one of the reasons why the superhero genre has managed to stay strong all the years amidst all of this backlash is due to the fact that studios have recognized one crucial thing; they need to keep doing ‘new’ stuff with these films. That’s exactly what Marvel Studios has been doing with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, going through various film genres from heist films (Ant-Man) to 70’s era spy thrillers (Captain America: The Winter Soldier). So with that said, I guess I can sort of see why a lot of people are dinging X-Men: Apocalypse for not really standing out amongst some of the other superhero films of the year, including the highly anticipated meeting of titans that was Batman v Superman, the equally grand-scale confrontation of heroes in Captain America: Civil War, the all-villains affair of Suicide Squad, and the unabashed R-rated escapades of Deadpool. In fact, I have the feeling that the highly enthusiastic response by fans towards Deadpool may have had a negative impact on Apocalypse due to the increased craving for more R-rated superhero stories. Case in point, I’ve seen quite a few articles online (mostly from BirthMoviesDeath.com) that have condemned the X-Men films for reasons that I previously mentioned in my first point about Bryan Singer’s handling of the franchise. 

However, I’m not going to take any of this into account when I see the film because the quality of the past few X-Men films have been more than enough proof that Fox is doing just fine with the franchise. Yeah as far as their Marvel films go they did have a pretty big stumble recently with their second attempt at a Fantastic Four franchise (emphasis on it being a ‘pretty big stumble’) but as far as the X-Men films are concerned, things have been going quite smoothly for them, most recently exemplified by the success of Deadpool. But like I said in my review of that film, that doesn’t mean that studios should make every future superhero film R-rated just because that’s what the fanboys crave. And for the record, it’s an extremely good thing that studios are making sure to maintain fresh ideas with the superhero films so that they can continue to strive amidst all of the scrutiny they’ve been getting recently. However, at the end of the day, I think quality is more important when it comes to these films and like I’ve been saying, most of the superhero films released since 2008 (both Marvel and DC) have been at least ‘good’. Obviously there have been a few stinkers over the years but I’d say that the ratio of good to bad superhero films is somewhere around 80%/20%, which is pretty good if you ask me. But like I said earlier, yes the reviews for X-Men: Apocalypse haven’t really been that good. But to reiterate a point I made in my Spoiler Post for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, that doesn’t mean that critics are always ‘right’. With that said, I will be going into Apocalypse not expecting it to be ‘better’ than Days of Future Past. But that’s not much of an issue with me because DOFP is a pretty tough act to follow. But under the great direction of Bryan Singer, I’m confident that this film will, at the very least, be better than what the internet is continually putting it out to be based on all of the reasons that I’ve listed in this post.

So those are the Top 3 reasons why I feel that X-Men: Apocalypse is being criminally undervalued by the internet. Anyone else feel that the internet has been giving this film the shaft in terms of its pre-release buzz? Be sure to sound off in the comments below.