Apocalypse Things you didn't like in X-Men: Apocalypse (Spoilers)

[DACrowe]

How does that make sense at all lol. We see Mystique as Stryker at the end of DOFP. And in this film Wolverine is captured and turned to weapon X. Did the Mystique who is saving mutants turn Wolverine in or did he just wake up and get captured again at some other time.

Wouldn't it had made some sense to even show him getting captured. It makes no sense at all.

To be fair it had been 10 years. I assumed when we got to the Weapon X program that Wolverine was captured some years later by Stryker, much like how things played out in Timeline A (or he volunteered).

I did not mind the change, because it explains how Logan still has metal claws in the future. But I guess it is confusing to some. However, I never expected Logan and Mystique to be still hanging out a decade later, so this one did not throw me.

 

[henzINNIT]

This is how I took that scene too. It wasn't meant to show things have changed, but that they're still the same.

The scene is played the Strker has turned around now, he's helping Wolvie' out of the water, things are different now.

But then when his eyes flash to show it's Mystique, it shows that things haven't really changed at all. Stryker is still out there and probably hates mutants just as much (Mystique was only able to save the day as she'd knocked him out, after all). And Wolverine was rescued and free to live the same life, and the same history.

This isn't how the scene is presented. It's clearly shown that Stryker intends to abduct Logan, and the Mystique reveal is to cement the idea that things have changed.

 

[Slushy]

Mystique bringing Wolverine out of the water was pointless. They shouldn't have added glowing eyes to Stryker to begin. They fu**ed up and they know it as evidenced by the ending being completely ignored in this.


Fantastic movie overall, just a few gripes:

- I wanted to see the mall scene. Hopefully, its a deleted scene on the DVD / Blu-Ray.

- Ben Foster should've reprised his role as Angel.

- Didn't like Mystique leading the X-Men. Wonder if Singer had this lame idea in his head when he was making the original film.

- Everybody should've ganged up on Apolcaypse like in the cartoon. That would've been dope!

 

[ApophènX]

Mystique bringing Wolverine out of the water was pointless. They shouldn't have added glowing eyes to Stryker to begin. They fu**ed up and they know it as evidenced by the ending being completely ignored in!

It wasn't ignored at all. XMA begin with Apocalyspe receiving healing power and being burried like Wolverine was drownd on a table linked to the sun (like the one Wolvi was in on DoFP, and alike the one he was bringed by stryker).

Having Mystique takin him out also have a resonnance about the inversion of woman/man in the new trilogy. In X2 it was Jean who was drowned like Wolverine and Scott who awoker her. Here woman awake man. Apocalypse his resurected because of Moira. Both are also linkd to Charles wich like Apocalypse passes body in X3. It's a far stretch but pretty coherent.

I hope they let Mystique out in the next movie like the teal would have latured and she would have disappear. Making Erik connect wih nature could also leas to a Savage Land later.

I hope there is a lot of deleted scene, sometime the editing/pacing didn't quiet flow, if two or three scenes are add up maybe it could fix that a bit.

 

[Slushy]

That doesn't work for me, bro.

 

[redmarvel]

I didn't like that Angel never got to be a good guy and then they killed him off.

 

[GuestStar2004]

I didn't like that Angel never got to be a good guy and then they killed him off.

He may not be dead since he looked pretty good laying there in the rubble for someone who just crashed in a jet so its probably open to say he might be alive depending if we bring him back but if we don't he is probably dead.

 

[CyclopsSummers]

-Psylocke : they destroyed this characters. Munn wasted her time for training for martial arts, but she never usekicks in movie
-Mystique: totally useless in final battle, shes a hero in this film just because superstar JLaw. She hasnt any fight whereas she is a good fighter. a shame!
-Jubilee : totally useless. I prefer Jubilee in OT with Rogue's generation
-Angel : so stupid

-Explosion of x-mansion, WTF, we dont see it explode, just wreckage
-Motivation of horsemen

 

[Leenie]

I'll briefly list the things I think could have been much, much better in the movie:

-Storm
-Psylocke
-Archangel

The formation of the Horsemen in general was too convenient. You know what I think COULD have been pretty cool? Wolverine as one of the Horsemen. Wolvie as a bad guy ... It would have been something different and interesting!

 

[2kt09]

-Explosion of x-mansion, WTF, we don't see it explode, just wreckage

wait, what?

 

[Super Jim]

Things I didn't like in X-Men: Apocalypse?

Wow, just so, so much! I was hopeful. I mean, we're talking Apocalypse! When that was dropped I was like, "YES!", but now I'm just shaking my head saying "no, no, no!".

So here goes...

1. The Timeline! Yes, this isn't solely the fault of the Apocalypse movie, but after Days of Future Past there was kind of a soft reset for some of the previous mistakes and there appeared to be a little interest in Singer and Kinberg for wanting to fix/care about the timeline, but that was all B.S.

I could spend hours talking about how bad the X-Men movieverse timeline is, and how this constant decade jumping is such a mistake, but let me try to focus on the timeline issues in Apocalypse:

- Many of the characters from First Class don't match up as far as ages. Magneto, Moira and Charles are supposed to be like 50 and Havok like 40, but fine, I can move past this if it wasn't so obvious or problematic as far as other related characters.
- And to make a joke about this was kind of a slap in the face. To say "Moira hasn't aged a day" was annoying.

2. How Apocalypse was awoken!

This was beyond stupid. Moira, of all people, woke him up by leaving the door open (uncovered) so the sun could get in? Amazingly stupid! I wrote this concept way back where a young Storm followed Gambit into the Great Pyramid of Giza (after trying to steal from Gambit earlier and finding him to be a mutant like her) and she mistakenly wakes him up. That would have been so much better than the crap we got!

3. Charles as a love sick puppy. This 50 year old dude, who (for no real reason) altered Moira's mind 20 years ago, is all love sick over the thoughts of her? Stupid! I mean, he could have altered the minds of all of the CIA agents and lived happily ever after with Moira for the past 20 years, but no, can't do that...

4. The Villain! This one is simple, if you get the villain wrong, you've ruined the movie, and Apocalypse sucked! I mean, he sucked bad! Isaac is a great actor, but he didn't fit for Apocalypse. I mean, the Rock would have been better (maybe). But the make-up and cg was terrible, and Oscar is too short, and they didn't even try to fix that in post. They gave us Ivan Ooze with no celestial (or alien) technology and no defined powers. One minute he's melting people and the next launching nukes. Just didn't make sense.

5. Mystique! In all of the previous movies it was Wolverine and his super friends. Now it's Mystique and her super friends. Yes, I get it, Jennifer Lawrence is popular, but this was a chance to focus on the new characters. It started off like maybe that's what it would be, but not too long into things Cyclops became secondary, like we always knew would happen. Her abandoning her "mutant and proud" philosophy and her flicking the switch of being a good guy too easily. Worse though is her terrible Katness Everdeen speeches in this movie! Mystique should NOT be leading the X-Men.

Could you imagine her leading her own Brotherhood of Mutants in this movie and her team needing to join together with the X-Men in order to defeat Apocalypse in the final battle? Now that could have been amazing!

6. Angel! Or whatever/whoever that guy was, because he wasn't Angel/Archangel. That definitely wasn't Warren Worthington III! Angel is not some punk rock cage fighter. And Angel should never have even been in this movie since he was used in Last Stand (and no, Days of Future Past wouldn't make him born 20 years earlier!).

Look, at first I kind of got why you would want to have Angel/Archangel in an Apocalypse movie. Archangel as the Horseman Death is iconic. But to force him into the movie by conveniently forgetting him in Last Stand is stupid. But worse is to force him in and then barely use him. He was a waste of a character!

Instead, they should have used Wolverine as the Horseman Death (and actually called him that). That might have made sense as Mystique could have "sold" Logan to Sinister who could have turned Wolvie into Apocalypse Horseman. That would have been cool...

7. Magneto. Look, I think Fassbender is amazing, but his story arch was a bit stupid. To have this guy with amazing powers working in a steel mill was stupid! I mean, this is a guy who could have pulled gold from the ground. He could have purchased his own country (and maybe named it Genosha or Avalon or something), but nope, let's put him in a steel mill making minimum wage. Yes, love that he found some semblance of a normal life (as fgar as having a wife and kid), but that wasn't realistic. He too switches his goodness on and off a bit too easily. "You killed my family, I'll destroy the world!" And the "women in refrigerator" trope is a bit overused.

What they should have done is have him either leading his own (mutant) country, or preparing to leave the earth (Avalon/Asteroid M). This could have been used as a means to get Quicksilver and Magneto to acknowledge their relationship and Peter could have left with Erik.

Which bring me to:

8. The holding back of family reveals.

You have two huge family possibilities and you barely acknowledge one "he's my dad" and ignore the other. To not have Peter tell Magneto that he is his son was bad, but to ignore Mystique being Kurt's mommy (and Azazel being his daddy) was criminal!

9. Nightcrawler. Don't get me wrong, I like Kodi. He was actually the one I recommended for the role when I wrote up my fan cast. But to not have him at the circus was a missed opportunity.

I wrote a story a while back for Apocalypse where the team went to investigate a mutant at a circus in Germany. While the X-kiddos are watching the Amazing Nightcrawler do his act Charles was meeting with his step-mother, Margali. Something happens causing Kurt to use his powers, causing the X-Kids to get involved and ultimately Kurt to leave with Professor X. Now that would have been cool!

Oh, also, for some 17 year old kid to have those facial scars is just wrong. This is a new timeline and it wasn't necessary. Also, not having Kurt wield a sword with his tail is a missed opportunity!

10. Making fun of the third movie being bad. Yes, I agree, the third movie is usually the worst, but any guy who directed Superman Returns is not allowed to make fun of any movie, especially one from the Star Wars trilogy! And it is ironic that the worst movie (by far) in this Singer/Kinberg trilogy (First Class/Last Stand/Apocalypse) is this one!

11. Havok! What a waste of a character. First, they never should have forced him into First Class. Caused too many age related issues with Scott, which they chose to ignore anyway, which took me out of the story. But he served no real purpose in this movie, other than to die, and his death was terrible. It was greatly overlooked due to the fun Quicksilver featurette. It would have been one thing to kill him off at the beginning of the epic battle, but to have him die like he did? Stupid! Also, you telling this guy hasn't found a way to use his powers and not burn a big circle in his shirts?

12. The Military intervention. Ok, the mansion gets blown up and Quicksilver, luckily, who just happens to be there, is able to run around and save everyone (guess he no longer cares about w.h.i.p.l.a.s.h.), and this all happens in what, 2 seconds or so. Fine, decent scene I guess, but once it's over Stryker and his military army shows up out of nowhere? What, were they on their way there anyway and it just happened to coincide with the mansion being blown up? And then worse, they knock everyone out (except those who went to the mall) and leave everyone except a couple?????? That's not the Stryker I remember, and the whole scene was just a bit too convenience.

13. Meaningless Deaths. I've already ranted about Havok's worthless death, but same with Archangel's. To kill off Archangel, so he's gone for good (well, who knows with Kinberg and Singer), was a waste!

14. Weapon X. Don't get me wrong, I liked the scene. Yes, maybe it was a bit gratuitous, but whatever. But it took me out of things a bit because I was caught up with how Stryker shouldn't have him. It was Mystique that fished him out 10 years ago, so how exactly did Stryker get him? Doesn't make a lot of sense.

I kind of liked my version better where Mystique (at some point in the past) "sold" Wolverine's body to Mr. Sinister, and Sinister turned Wolvie into Apocalypse's Horseman Death. Would have introduced Sinister and given Wolverine a cool role as the main "villain" that they would have needed to defeat, which would have also enabled Apocalypse to be placed (by Sinister) in his regen chamber so he could be reused in an Age of Apocalypse movie in the future...

15. Caliban. What a flippin waste! That wasn't Caliban. Caliban is supposed to have the mutant power of tracking mutants, not being a Varys from GOT type guy, who knows where to go find mutants. That loses him from any futue Morlock story.

16. No Brotherhood. Mystique could have been leading a Brotherhood group that could have joined up with the X-Men to defeat Apocalypse. That would have been amazing. We had Toad and Ink in Days of Future Past, so this could have been so easily done.

17. Blob. Yes, likely a better version than Origins, but still, what a waste. Cameos like this mean nothing. And are we really to believe that punk rock Angel could beat the Blob?

18. No Mall Scene. I would have actually liked to have seen some of the X-Men at the mall, but nope, we couldn't get that. Maybe it'll be in the extended version (which I'll never buy). Worse, are we really to believe that the average person would have no issue with some blue skinned, scarred up demon looking kid walking around?

19. Phoenix Force. Way too early! This should not have been how they beat Apocalypse. They shouldn't even have eluded to it yet. Yes, the Dark Phoenix story could be done much better, but it's too early!

20. The Astral Plane "fight". What a wasted opportunity. How amazing this could have been. Charles could have been armored. Just could have been so much better!

21. Psylocke! A whip? Really? Again, what a waste. They had zero focus on her telepathy, which is what that knife (not sword, and definitely not a whip) is supposed to be. How cool would it have been to see her jam that thing into the brain of say Quicksilver, rendering him unconscious or something? And don't even get me started on her cutting a car in half. Terribly done!

I'm sure there's more I can come up with, but this should serve for now!

 

[psylockolussus]

I'll briefly list the things I think could have been much, much better in the movie:

-Storm
-Psylocke
-Archangel

The formation of the Horsemen in general was too convenient. You know what I think COULD have been pretty cool? Wolverine as one of the Horsemen. Wolvie as a bad guy ... It would have been something different and interesting!

That would totally elevated the film if those three were handled well. And I agree with most of Super Jim's points.

 

[DACrowe]

Mystique bringing Wolverine out of the water was pointless. They shouldn't have added glowing eyes to Stryker to begin. They fu**ed up and they know it as evidenced by the ending being completely ignored in this.


Fantastic movie overall, just a few gripes:

- I wanted to see the mall scene. Hopefully, its a deleted scene on the DVD / Blu-Ray.

- Ben Foster should've reprised his role as Angel.

- Didn't like Mystique leading the X-Men. Wonder if Singer had this lame idea in his head when he was making the original film.

- Everybody should've ganged up on Apolcaypse like in the cartoon. That would've been dope!

Actually it is a great button for that film. It explains that things might go in a different way. That is not betrayed just because things with Logan played out as they originally did. Most of Apocalypse is a testament to the new timeline going its own way with the awakening of Apocalypse, the (brief) public acceptance, or at least tolerance, of mutants, Jean Grey embracing her Phoenix powers instead of hiding from them, Mystique staying an ally to Charles as opposed to growing into an enemy.

I do not think the point of that ending was betrayed, it just was a way to explain how Logan got the metal claws. If Jackman did more than reshoots, perhaps he could have been introduced as one of the Four Horsemen (maybe replacing Angel or Psylocke). But what is done is done.

To me the film has much bigger issues than showing that Logan did become Weapon X (in a much more satisfying way than XOW).

The bigger issues is that Apocalypse did not feel biblical enough for most of the movie despite his name, the lack of character development of three of the horsemen, the fact that Apocalypse did not use mind control on them, which leads into the next point about Storm being okay following Apocalypse after she sees him commit genocide in her hometown while Magneto goes so far as to kill at least tens of thousands of people (if not more), and then be "redeemed." Also the CGI action was a mixed bag at best.

So it has plenty of issues. The fact Loan ended up getting his metal claws from Stryker is not one of them.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

The problem with the Weapon X stuff is that we have this big moment with the nukes, Xavier getting captured, the mansion blowing up, and Havok dying and then the plot just stops dead to spend 15 minutes introducing Stryker and Wolverine. And then it has nothing to do with the rest of the movie once it is over.

It is just filler and doesn't belong in the film. Asking your main plot to just stop to go and do something completely unrelated for several minutes is awful storytelling.

Wolverine's cameo in First Class was much, much better. It lasted ten seconds and got a good laugh in the middle of a plot important recruiting montage.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

The bigger issues is that Apocalypse did not feel biblical enough for most of the movie despite his name, the lack of character development of three of the horsemen, the fact that Apocalypse did not use mind control on them, which leads into the next point about Storm being okay following Apocalypse after she sees him commit genocide in her hometown while Magneto goes so far as to kill at least tens of thousands of people (if not more), and then be "redeemed." Also the CGI action was a mixed bag at best.

Agreed. Everything you list here is a problem, but the biggest for me is that it wasn't biblical enough. We are told over and over again that Apocalypse is basically like a god, but we never see any of that. He just seems like any other generic evil mutant type. Heck, Magneto does most of the destruction. TDKR with Bane taking over Gotham comes off as far more epic in scale than anything in this film.

The X-Men Evolution cartoon did it right. Apocalypse there was this essentially invulnerable immortal being that brought the world to its knees and everybody was scared to death by his mere presence. Magneto couldn't even scratch him in their fight and he could kill really powerful mutants instantly by just waving his hands. That's the type of villain we needed in this film.

 

[DACrowe]

I do think the nuclear power scene is the one moment where you get a sense of the menace. Well that and the grand opening prologue. But the scripting is less of an ancient supreme being and more of a vain villain of generic comic book writing.

I got more of a sense of biblical dread from Phoenix than Apocalypse, which is fine for her, but a huge miss for this villain. I do not blame Isaac or even the makeup. Just the writing and direction making some poor decisions in both regards. Agreed on Bane and even Joker, who brought the soul of society to its breaking point with "some bullets and a couple of barrels of gasoline."

With that said, Apocalypse is better than half the MCU villains. The difference is that the MCU has not named its movies after its villains (save for the equally dippy Ultron in Age of Ultron) nor was it reaching for something so operatic. It is a shame.

As for X-Men: Evolution, I don't think it's that much better if any. He never shows up until the final two episodes and is also pretty easily defeated. I actually think the buildup is way better than the payoff. The truth is that this is a very hard character to write for.

 

[GuestStar2004]

It has to be remembered that this is singers apocalypse, singer has a certain vision for what type of a character he would be and it was half cult leader and half false god.

He believed himself to be a god because of what he could do like the opening narration said but as a god what he could do was still very limited and that's why he wanted Charles.

 

[psylockolussus]

I do think the nuclear power scene is the one moment where you get a sense of the menace. Well that and the grand opening prologue.

I thought it was pretty pointless and came out of nowhere. Like maybe if they had a dozen of military groups hunting Apocalypse in Egypt later in the movie, that would have made sense but no. Like I would think if someone sent all nuclear weapon to space, that would have been a big chaos for a lot of government in the world and what we got (other Stryker going to the X-Mansion) is U.S. government people doing nothing but chit-chat in their office. Well it's one purpose, was so Stryker would go to the X-mansion and grab a couple of mutants and which led to one of the worst parts of the movie.

 

[DawnWarrior]

Another thing I didn't much like had to do with the fighting in Cairo. Of all the fights in these movies, I liked the one at the end of X-Men: First Class the best, with the X-Men fighting the Hellfire Club, because it was one entire team fighting another entire team, constantly switching opponents and using all their different powers and tricks on one another. We'd never seen that in this series before. We got to see something like that again this year with the airport fight in Civil War. It would have also created more of an impression that Apocalypse had made the horsemen extremely powerful so the X-Men had to use all their tricks and teamwork to take them down. But for this movie, it was back to basics with one or two X-Men squaring off with a horseman and that was it: Nightcrawler fought Archangel, Beast fought Psylocke, Cyclops & Jean fought Storm. It felt more like the first X-Men movie, and that fight was, at least by today's standards, rather dull.

 

[psylockolussus]

I for one liked the team dynamic of Psylocke and Angel... even Psylocke saved Storm, I wish we had more of that. But yeah, some parts were cool but over-all, it was choreographed badly and I thought the fight scenes between Nightcrawler and Archangel were so poor. The cage fight was done in a minute, then in Egypt, Angel was knocked down because Nightcrawler grabbed his tail from Archangel, meh. Like the fight scenes in Deadpool are so much more better!

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

I do think the nuclear power scene is the one moment where you get a sense of the menace. Well that and the grand opening prologue. But the scripting is less of an ancient supreme being and more of a vain villain of generic comic book writing.

I got more of a sense of biblical dread from Phoenix than Apocalypse, which is fine for her, but a huge miss for this villain. I do not blame Isaac or even the makeup. Just the writing and direction making some poor decisions in both regards. Agreed on Bane and even Joker, who brought the soul of society to its breaking point with "some bullets and a couple of barrels of gasoline."

With that said, Apocalypse is better than half the MCU villains. The difference is that the MCU has not named its movies after its villains (save for the equally dippy Ultron in Age of Ultron) nor was it reaching for something so operatic. It is a shame.

I find it interesting you brought up Ultron specifically, because Apocalypse to me basically ended up as Fox's version of Ultron.

As for X-Men: Evolution, I don't think it's that much better if any. He never shows up until the final two episodes and is also pretty easily defeated. I actually think the buildup is way better than the payoff. The truth is that this is a very hard character to write for.

He showed up at the end of the third season and the beginning of the fourth, and his presence was felt throughout the entire fourth season. I also wouldn't really say he was defeated easily. The good guys were getting annihilated by the Horsemen. He was only defeated because Rogue and Leech took away his powers, when he was in an already weakened state because he was using his body to transform the human race.

Now, I'm not in any way saying the movie should have been a straight copy of the cartoon. Simply pointing out when a cartoon for kids does a genocidal god better than a feature film, something went wrong with said film.

 

[Phoenix_Flare]

I find it interesting you brought up Ultron specifically, because Apocalypse to me basically ended up as Fox's version of Ultron.



He showed up at the end of the third season and the beginning of the fourth, and his presence was felt throughout the entire fourth season. I also wouldn't really say he was defeated easily. The good guys were getting annihilated by the Horsemen. He was only defeated because Rogue and Leech took away his powers, when he was in an already weakened state because he was using his body to transform the human race.

Now, I'm not in any way saying the movie should have been a straight copy of the cartoon. Simply pointing out when a cartoon for kids does a genocidal god better than a feature film, something went wrong with said film.

I agree. Apocalypse and his horsemen did not feel like a threat. All they did was follow him around, he never sent them on a mission to terrorize the world like in TAS or Evolution. At least he could've sent them to different nations throughout the world and let them reck havoc on the militia or something! I was just bored just seeing them stand there.

 

[Metamorpheus]

I agree. Apocalypse and his horsemen did not feel like a threat. All they did was follow him around, he never sent them on a mission to terrorize the world like in TAS or Evolution. At least he could've sent them to different nations throughout the world and let them reck havoc on the militia or something! I was just bored just seeing them stand there.

The weird thing to me about this movie was that there was almost no interaction between humans and mutants. Even in FC when mutants were still in hiding there was this sense of knowing what humans thought about them but in apocalypse there's virtually no reaction from the human point of view.

 

[GuestStar2004]

The weird thing to me about this movie was that there was almost no interaction between humans and mutants. Even in FC when mutants were still in hiding there was this sense of knowing what humans thought about them but in apocalypse there's virtually no reaction from the human point of view.

Moira and stryker

 

[DavidHaller]

The weird thing to me about this movie was that there was almost no interaction between humans and mutants. Even in FC when mutants were still in hiding there was this sense of knowing what humans thought about them but in apocalypse there's virtually no reaction from the human point of view.

this human-less situation was also completely random in Kairo! Suddenly all human inhabitants of the city just vanished and only five mutants emerged infront of green screens (or worse all humans got killed by Apocalypse without any explicit scenes of misery taking place or the X-Men trying to save civilians).

I think a scene where the four horsemen attack the Egyptian military, who try to save civilians would have been nice and the X-Men doing some heroics as a team saving people while fighting the horsemen (instead of these mediocre, bad choreographed X-Men vs. horsemen fights in debris...)

It is quite sad that X-Men Evolution did a better job doing the Apocalypse storyline than Singer's movie...