Powerful mutants make do with weak ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ script

The year 2016 is filled with giant superhero team up movies, starting strong with the hype that built “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice”, almost immediately followed by the better received “Captain America: Civil War.” There’s also “Deadpool” pleasing the crowd with its meta approach and fans are still eagerly waiting for the anti-hero DC offering “Suicide Squad.”

Where does X-Men fit in?

Those who love the franchise would always get a kick out of their favorite mutant’s power on full display, especially on IMAX. With an iconic villain like Apocalypse, the excitement is overshadowed by the fear that the God-like mutant is just too big for the screen.

Watch the film if you want to see mutants.

Fortunately, actor Oscar Isaac and writer Simon Kinberg found a way to introduce him effectively and they even managed show how menacing he can be—and maybe they build his character too much that the audience understands his motives more, making it hard to root against him.

This Apocalypse thrives on dust—emerging from it in Cairo, gathering it as he sleeps for centuries, and reducing objects and people into it when he awakens. The images of large structures being reduced to dust and people becoming ashes is strong; the way he buries people alive in sand would be enough to make you submit to his will if you lived in that universe.

Merge that with his speeches about worshipping false idols and freeing people from the slavery of a system and…well, you’ll wonder why the X-Men even want to beat this guy.

There are very few humans in the film that seem worth saving. Early in the movie, there’s a high school jock stereotype itching to beat the living daylights out of Scott Summers (Cyclops, played by Tye Sheridan) and then there’s shop owners willing to cut off would-be Storm’s (played by Alexandra Shipp) arm for stealing—to survive, because it’s a tough world, isn’t it? Apocalypse appears in this scene, a bit outraged by the worship of money and the injustice of a world where countries are super powers and mutants with incredible abilities don’t even have enough to eat.

There’s so much conflict between mutants and humans, humans against humans, and mutants against mutants…it’s not hard to believe that the four handpicked horsemen (Storm, Psylocke played by Olivia Munn, Archangel played by Ben Hardy, and Magneto played by Michael Fassbender) would jump at the chance for a reset button in the form of Apocalypse.

Olivia Munn plays Psylocke.

The recently concluded national elections in the Philippines seem to point to a need for drastic change, where the word “kill” elicited cheering rather than fear, disgust, or anything similar to Charles Xavier’s (played by James McAvoy) reaction.

“X-Men: Apocalypse” doesn’t support Xavier’s stance of “turning the other cheek” enough. The movie floats on the impressive performance of the actors and the thrill of seeing Quicksilver (played by Evan Peters) do his thing again. Those and better camera work and pacing make it a superior movie to “Captain America: Civil War”, but it got bogged down with its obsessive focus on Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) that it missed the opportunity to argue for humanity in Magneto’s struggle.

Much has happened to this man; being in a concentration camp alone is traumatizing, add to that the hostility against mutants, and when his efforts to keep his head down and mind his own business fails because he saved a man—you want justice for him. You want to give him an opportunity to exact revenge and the movie forgets to give a better reason for Magneto to fight Apocalypse.

It is fun to believe that the friendship he has with Xavier is that strong. It would have been more interesting, in this writer’s opinion, to have shown that Apocalypse is just a bluer Hitler. Eliminate a perceived evil, at the cost of destroying everything. Team Apocalypse believes there is no hope for humanity anyway. The movie fails to show that they are wrong.

What should have set “X-Men Apocalypse” apart is the discussion of racism and genocide. The comic books and the animated series have explored this theme profoundly without sacrificing humor, creating cool characters, or being entertaining.

Getting in Xavier’s head is fun and it’s hard as a fan not to feel joy when you know that the Phoenix Saga is right around the corner…but it’s the same empty applause for Captain America’s biceps when he pulled down that helicopter.

There are plenty of funny and beautifully shot scenes in the film (fans of the Xavier and Moira love team will not be disappointed!), which you can find in any other superhero movie. The same clichéd rhetoric is here, too.

Watch it if you want to see mutants. Otherwise, move along. —KG, GMA News

"X-Men: Apocalypse" is currently showing in cinemas.