X-Men: Apocalypse
May. 28th, 2016 12:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakThere's a scene in this movie where young Jean Grey, Scott Summers and Kurt Wagner have just watched Return of the Jedi and are discussing the Star Wars movies (I thought of penknife and amenirdis's old X-Men stories!), Kurt being pro Empire Strikes Back while Scott champions A New Hope, and Jean then concludes that at least they can agree that "the third one always is the worst". It's an obvious meta moment that just about gets away with it, and its charm embodies why despite this not really being a good movie I was entertained and glad as to where it left the characters.
Mind you, there was a major major emotional disconnect necessary for me to do that in one regard. To wit: this movie did the same thing X2 did near the end with Magneto and Mystique, i.e., it lets characters do something without allowing the emotional repercussions/responsibilities such acts would have. In X2, this was Magneto - via Mystique masquerading as Jason Stryker - telling a still under the thrall Charles Xavier to kill every single non-mutant on the planet. In addition to the personal betrayal here, this is (intended) global genocide on such a massive scale that it would make all butchers of history look like amateurs. Of course, X3 had many many other problems, but it doesn't even try to address this.
Now, Apocalypse has Magneto as well as three other mutants join forces with its titular big bad to, you guessed it, commit global genocide. Even more indiscriminately, since the effects of the disaster Apocalypse/En Sabah begins to unleash with their help would kill non-mutants and mutants alike (he says at one point it would leave "the strong", which, well...). Erik comes to his senses in time for the big climax of the movie, and so does young Storm, but in neither case you get the impression that the enormity of that action dawned on them before, and "killing billions is wrong" isn't really that hard a conclusion to draw, even if you've just lost your family again (Erik). (It's a bit easier to declare that Ororo didn't realise how truly dangerous En Sabah was and just what he intended until it was too late, and she'd seen him turn people into dust with a flick on his hand, so she was too scared until the sight of her heroine Mystique inspired her. But it would have been nice to see a moment of doubt/fear/I want to be out of this before that.)
(Note: while we see a lot of buildings destroyed, the movie avoids showing any corpses once we got to the global devastation stage, presumably because it doesn't want you to think about that part.)
Now, here's why I liked the movie regardless: it reworked a lot of X-Movie themes in a pleasing-to-me way. (And managed to surprise me pleasantly by turning a trope I was sure it would go for around.) And did so building on the previous two movies. So young Jean Grey this time around isn't mentally corpmentalized to deal with her powers. Nor is her first big Phoenix moment a self sacrifice, nor is she then overtaken by a power she can't control. Instead, she knows about her powers from the start, she's learning to work with them, and her big moment isn't self sacrifice or villainy but saving the day by using said powers.
Raven/Mystique has become a heroine to younger mutants, which she's uncomfortable with but which is shown as positive and inspiring throughout (not just to Ororo/Storm, though my earlier complaints aside, the two tag ends of Storm's development, from young Cairo street thief who has a poster of Mystique in her room to turning against Apocalypse when she sees her heroine fighting against him were great to watch); in fact, you can make a good case that this second trilogy of X-Movies is in fact Raven's story, from hunted waif to leader of the mutants, and that is its biggest virtue. It ends the false "Xavier or Magneto?" dichotomy, and by showing over telling, too.
Raven rescueing young Kurt at the beginning of the movie leaves it ambigous whether or not they're related (as in the comics); she could do it simply because he needs rescuing, or maybe he is her son. But what's truly pleasing is how the movie resolves the Quicksilver and Magneto issue. XMDoFP already hinted at movieverse Erik being Peter's father ("my mother knew a guy"), but left it open. XMA quickly establishes that Erik is indeed the father but doesn't know it, while Peter has figured it out. Now, since we see Erik having an angelic wife and daughter who predictably get killed in order to let him fall in with En Sabah, I expected him to see the light when presented with the son he didn't know he had. And didn't feel too well about it, because what does it say about Erik if he only abstains from global genocide because there's still a blood relation about?
And then. And then we got the scene which is perhaps the movie's most surprising and original: Raven brings Peter to Erik, as she planned upon discovering the connection. But she doesn't tell him about this is his son in order to sway him. Both because it's Peter's story to tell, and because the point she makes to Erik - that he HAS family, her and Charles, and that she's going to fight for that family, whether or not he does - would be devalued. Now, Peter through the movie has been wanting to see Erik again, having worked out the truth, but has mixed feelings as well (not surprisingly). But seeing Erik busy aiding global destruction, he doesn't tell him, either. Instead, he says that he's here "for family" and goes off with Raven to save the world. That was such an unexpected and welcome overturning of the expected "I'm your son/Well, in that case..." trope, I can't tell you. And after Erik does change his mind and goes against Apocalypse (courtesy of Charles and Raven memories), Peter still doesn't tell him, but decides to wait and see. This is about the only reaction the movie gives us to the fact that Erik nearly destroyed the world before coming to his senses, and it really needed to exist.
As for Charles and Erik: this is the first X movie that left them in a better place than where it started them. Their final conversation is a close variation to their last conversation in X1 - but a variation, with the difference being that the undertone of threat/defense is replaced by assurance/hope. Erik's U-Turn in the last third of the film doesn't, as in X2, XM: FC and X: DoFP divide him from Charles, but brings him back. And I fully support the glorious cheesiness of Erik planting a metal X in front of Charles to protect him from En Sabah.
Another point where you wonder whether this is fanfiction: Raven says "Erik is in trouble" and Hank rolling his eyes and saying "when isn't he?". Hank: still has Erik Lehnsherr on his "Least Favourite People Of The World" list. I was reminded of the Hank story written post XMDoFP where Hank at one point rages about how Erik is the one who has both Raven and Charles if he wants to but keeps throwing them away. The Hank in this movie looks like he's thinking the same thing but is better prepared to deal with it. Not least since he seems to co-lead the school with Charles and comes across as a partner throughout.
Pesky aging: Wolverine (short appearance at Lake Alkali), in the wrong direction, but that's inevitable. There are valiant make-up efforts for James MacAvoy, but Fassbender looks unchanged, they added only a few touches for Rose Byrne (and had Charles observe that Moira looks unchanged), and of course Raven has the best excuse for not aging. Alex Summers looks more or less unchanged since the 1960s as well and has now acquired a teenage brother. While it's not impossible for brothers to be born 20 years apart, it would have made more sense to let Scott be Alex' son in this continuity. Instead, neither of the Summers parents we briefly meet shows signs of being secretly a space pirate, sad to say. (Comics joke.)
I should probably say something about the Big Bad, the first Mutant, but alas, En Sabah is just your standard Evil Overlord. We don't even find out why exactly he thinks the world has to be destroyed to be born anew, it's just his thing. I mean, I know this plot, I've read Queen of the Dammed, but Anne Rice at her tropiest did it better with the first vampire Akasha, and with a better use of the clash between "ancient being with a world view formed millennia ago" and modern times, too. En Sabah/Apocalypse is played by Oscar Isaacs, but there's so much make-up there that you don't notice.
In conclusion: better than X3, a good place to wrap it up, not that I expect they will, since there's money to be made. In a year where most superheroes in movies and tv are at each other's throats, plot wise, this is probably the only effort that ends with them reconciled and building together (literally as well as metaphorically).
penknife and amenirdis's old X-Men stories!), Kurt being pro Empire Strikes Back while Scott champions A New Hope, and Jean then concludes that at least they can agree that "the third one always is the worst". It's an obvious meta moment that just about gets away with it, and its charm embodies why despite this not really being a good movie I was entertained and glad as to where it left the characters. Mind you, there was a major major emotional disconnect necessary for me to do that in one regard. To wit: this movie did the same thing X2 did near the end with Magneto and Mystique, i.e., it lets characters do something without allowing the emotional repercussions/responsibilities such acts would have. In X2, this was Magneto - via Mystique masquerading as Jason Stryker - telling a still under the thrall Charles Xavier to kill every single non-mutant on the planet. In addition to the personal betrayal here, this is (intended) global genocide on such a massive scale that it would make all butchers of history look like amateurs. Of course, X3 had many many other problems, but it doesn't even try to address this.
Now, Apocalypse has Magneto as well as three other mutants join forces with its titular big bad to, you guessed it, commit global genocide. Even more indiscriminately, since the effects of the disaster Apocalypse/En Sabah begins to unleash with their help would kill non-mutants and mutants alike (he says at one point it would leave "the strong", which, well...). Erik comes to his senses in time for the big climax of the movie, and so does young Storm, but in neither case you get the impression that the enormity of that action dawned on them before, and "killing billions is wrong" isn't really that hard a conclusion to draw, even if you've just lost your family again (Erik). (It's a bit easier to declare that Ororo didn't realise how truly dangerous En Sabah was and just what he intended until it was too late, and she'd seen him turn people into dust with a flick on his hand, so she was too scared until the sight of her heroine Mystique inspired her. But it would have been nice to see a moment of doubt/fear/I want to be out of this before that.)
(Note: while we see a lot of buildings destroyed, the movie avoids showing any corpses once we got to the global devastation stage, presumably because it doesn't want you to think about that part.)
Now, here's why I liked the movie regardless: it reworked a lot of X-Movie themes in a pleasing-to-me way. (And managed to surprise me pleasantly by turning a trope I was sure it would go for around.) And did so building on the previous two movies. So young Jean Grey this time around isn't mentally corpmentalized to deal with her powers. Nor is her first big Phoenix moment a self sacrifice, nor is she then overtaken by a power she can't control. Instead, she knows about her powers from the start, she's learning to work with them, and her big moment isn't self sacrifice or villainy but saving the day by using said powers.
Raven/Mystique has become a heroine to younger mutants, which she's uncomfortable with but which is shown as positive and inspiring throughout (not just to Ororo/Storm, though my earlier complaints aside, the two tag ends of Storm's development, from young Cairo street thief who has a poster of Mystique in her room to turning against Apocalypse when she sees her heroine fighting against him were great to watch); in fact, you can make a good case that this second trilogy of X-Movies is in fact Raven's story, from hunted waif to leader of the mutants, and that is its biggest virtue. It ends the false "Xavier or Magneto?" dichotomy, and by showing over telling, too.
Raven rescueing young Kurt at the beginning of the movie leaves it ambigous whether or not they're related (as in the comics); she could do it simply because he needs rescuing, or maybe he is her son. But what's truly pleasing is how the movie resolves the Quicksilver and Magneto issue. XMDoFP already hinted at movieverse Erik being Peter's father ("my mother knew a guy"), but left it open. XMA quickly establishes that Erik is indeed the father but doesn't know it, while Peter has figured it out. Now, since we see Erik having an angelic wife and daughter who predictably get killed in order to let him fall in with En Sabah, I expected him to see the light when presented with the son he didn't know he had. And didn't feel too well about it, because what does it say about Erik if he only abstains from global genocide because there's still a blood relation about?
And then. And then we got the scene which is perhaps the movie's most surprising and original: Raven brings Peter to Erik, as she planned upon discovering the connection. But she doesn't tell him about this is his son in order to sway him. Both because it's Peter's story to tell, and because the point she makes to Erik - that he HAS family, her and Charles, and that she's going to fight for that family, whether or not he does - would be devalued. Now, Peter through the movie has been wanting to see Erik again, having worked out the truth, but has mixed feelings as well (not surprisingly). But seeing Erik busy aiding global destruction, he doesn't tell him, either. Instead, he says that he's here "for family" and goes off with Raven to save the world. That was such an unexpected and welcome overturning of the expected "I'm your son/Well, in that case..." trope, I can't tell you. And after Erik does change his mind and goes against Apocalypse (courtesy of Charles and Raven memories), Peter still doesn't tell him, but decides to wait and see. This is about the only reaction the movie gives us to the fact that Erik nearly destroyed the world before coming to his senses, and it really needed to exist.
As for Charles and Erik: this is the first X movie that left them in a better place than where it started them. Their final conversation is a close variation to their last conversation in X1 - but a variation, with the difference being that the undertone of threat/defense is replaced by assurance/hope. Erik's U-Turn in the last third of the film doesn't, as in X2, XM: FC and X: DoFP divide him from Charles, but brings him back. And I fully support the glorious cheesiness of Erik planting a metal X in front of Charles to protect him from En Sabah.
Another point where you wonder whether this is fanfiction: Raven says "Erik is in trouble" and Hank rolling his eyes and saying "when isn't he?". Hank: still has Erik Lehnsherr on his "Least Favourite People Of The World" list. I was reminded of the Hank story written post XMDoFP where Hank at one point rages about how Erik is the one who has both Raven and Charles if he wants to but keeps throwing them away. The Hank in this movie looks like he's thinking the same thing but is better prepared to deal with it. Not least since he seems to co-lead the school with Charles and comes across as a partner throughout.
Pesky aging: Wolverine (short appearance at Lake Alkali), in the wrong direction, but that's inevitable. There are valiant make-up efforts for James MacAvoy, but Fassbender looks unchanged, they added only a few touches for Rose Byrne (and had Charles observe that Moira looks unchanged), and of course Raven has the best excuse for not aging. Alex Summers looks more or less unchanged since the 1960s as well and has now acquired a teenage brother. While it's not impossible for brothers to be born 20 years apart, it would have made more sense to let Scott be Alex' son in this continuity. Instead, neither of the Summers parents we briefly meet shows signs of being secretly a space pirate, sad to say. (Comics joke.)
I should probably say something about the Big Bad, the first Mutant, but alas, En Sabah is just your standard Evil Overlord. We don't even find out why exactly he thinks the world has to be destroyed to be born anew, it's just his thing. I mean, I know this plot, I've read Queen of the Dammed, but Anne Rice at her tropiest did it better with the first vampire Akasha, and with a better use of the clash between "ancient being with a world view formed millennia ago" and modern times, too. En Sabah/Apocalypse is played by Oscar Isaacs, but there's so much make-up there that you don't notice.
In conclusion: better than X3, a good place to wrap it up, not that I expect they will, since there's money to be made. In a year where most superheroes in movies and tv are at each other's throats, plot wise, this is probably the only effort that ends with them reconciled and building together (literally as well as metaphorically).
no subject
Date: 2016-05-28 02:16 pm (UTC)I agree that Pietro not disclosing his relation was good. I wasn't bothered by the age gap between Alex and Scott, probably because all my siblings and half-siblings are much older than me (the gap from me to my oldest sibling is 23 years), so that seemed natural enough to me.
no subject
Date: 2016-05-28 03:55 pm (UTC)With Storm, I wish they'd given us a scene where En Sabah transforming part of Egypt into his new pyramid had an impact on her. Because he must have killed thousands while doing that, and these were people Storm had lived with most of her life, whether or not she liked them.
no subject
Date: 2016-05-28 04:10 pm (UTC)Yeah, there must have been some heavy editing with very selective disclosure for the public going on...
no subject
Date: 2016-05-28 06:45 pm (UTC)Especially since it doesn't quite fit the narrative. Ok, so ten years ago this guy tried to kill the President and for a decade has been held up as public enemy #1 Dangerous Mutant. Then in a period of like, three days... the police find him and kill his family, he commits two separate mass murders (as far as anyone knows, he was actually responsible for the deaths at the factory), then the concentration camp where his parents died is destroyed in a bizarre, inexplicable occurrence AND a very similar effect starts to destroy buildings and bridges all over the world & is clearly understood by all to be a massive problem WITH THE EARTH'S MAGNETIC FIELDS. And Magneto was there... um, working to stop it, yeah, that's it. Sure thing, people are totally going to believe that. You don't even have to be one of those people working from the premise "all mutants are evil" to be like "wait a minute..." on that one.
no subject
Date: 2016-05-28 07:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-05-29 07:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-05-29 09:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-05-28 06:53 pm (UTC)Now, Peter through the movie has been wanting to see Erik again, having worked out the truth, but has mixed feelings as well (not surprisingly). But seeing Erik busy aiding global destruction, he doesn't tell him, either. Instead, he says that he's here "for family" and goes off with Raven to save the world. That was such an unexpected and welcome overturning of the expected "I'm your son/Well, in that case..." trope, I can't tell you.
I really, really wanted Peter to tell him in the moment, but yeah, I agree with all this-- it was much a much less predictable and much stronger character choice to have Erik make the choice for the reasons he did, and not just because MY SON??? And it's was really in character for Peter, too-- it's not like his mother spent 10 years building up some idealized image of Erik, and he met him as a teen and wouldn't have the illusions he might otherwise have had. He really doesn't know him. And like, *I* strongly suspect Erik probably would have been like MY SON??? and it would have gone a long way towards snapping him out of the irrational "destroy all humans" state he was in, but Peter has no reason to expect that. For all *he* knows, he could blurt out "I'm your son," and Erik would be like "Oh cool, let's definitely catch up in the post-apocalyptic kingdom of Apocalypse, BRB destroying all humans."
no subject
Date: 2016-05-29 08:06 am (UTC)