Just watched this again.
I'm a huge fan of the X-Men film series and specifically the films that Bryan Singer has directed or helped to craft the story (X-Men, X2: X-Men: United, X-Men: First Class, X-Men: Days Of Future Past and X-Men: Apocalypse).
Still, I recognize that X-Men: Apocalypse is probably the weakest of those five films.
I think there was an easy way to change that. I don't usually think that splitting a story into two films is the way to go, but here I think it would be.
With a story and a character as big as Apocalypse, setting out to tell his back story, building his team of horsemen, etc is a lot to achieve while combining it with the stories of the Xavier, Magneto, Raven, and the younger X-Men as well as doing things like returning to Alkali Lake ... There was just so much story and story possibility in this film. Probably too much.
If you split this film into two parts -- the first part can be much of what the final film was:
- Establish Apocalypse's origin
- Re-introduce all the main players
- Apocalypse recruits his horsemen
- He attacks the mansion and abducts Charles
- The X-kids are taken to Alkali Lake
All of this could still happen -- but you would have time to add things to the story:
- How did Wolverine get back with Stryker and what's Mystique's part in that?
And you could really let these events unfold a little more slowly and give each horseman a little more time to get their motivations (looking at you, Psylocke).
I'd also not make Angel a horseman in the first film.
Instead -- cast an A-list star as Warren Worthington III. Have him already an established X-Men at the jump of the film. Give him the former billionaire playboy persona, etc. Make him beloved by all of the students at the school. Make him charming and incredibly likable.
In the second act of Part I, have one of Apocalypse's four horsemen killed in battle. This way, at the start of the third act, Warren goes missing. This gives the opportunity to end the film on the reveal that he was abducted by Apocalypse and we end with seeing that he's been transformed into Archangel and is truly evil and different from the character we've gotten to know thus far -- making him more scary and raising the stakes.
Warrens' transformation into Archangel should have weight. It's not a box to be checked. Singer and Kinberg definitely dropped the ball on that in the film, and I think the desire to give fans what they want before it's actually ready to happen is the problem. Warren has to be a character you love. He has to be a character who represents all of the best of the X-Men, so when he is transformed into Archangel and "Death" it's painful to see him pitted against his former teammates.
Most movies, while acknowledging the larger universe, should be contained to stand-alone films. But a story and character as big as the one they were trying to tell in Apocalypse needed a larger canvas. As it stands, it's still a solid film but it's a shame of what it could have been.
-R
t:
