His resume reads mostly like a list of crimes against cinema.

I actually re-watched X-men Apocalypse this weekend - it's a wildly uneven film - more bad than good, but there is some fun stuff there:

Showing cyclops' optic blasts to have real power, much better than the Marsden version.

Quicksilver is a fun character - the blast sequence is a retread of Days of Future Past, but it's still well done.

The Wolverine scene - more brutal than I remember - not a fan of the Weapon X look, but I appreciate the nod to the history of the comics.

Fassbender's scenes as Magneto - contrived material but Fassbender is so good in the role it mostly works.

But the bad is bad - boring/useless villains - Olivia Munn treading in cosplay land, Archangel reduced to a an errand boy, and Apocalypse himself more interested in having conversations than doing anything evil. And the overall costuming, looking at Archangel, I won't miss Singer's presence.

But the worst by far is the need to try and force-feed us Mystique as a leader - her "forget everything you know" speech at the end might be the most cringe inducing moment in the entire series.

Time to give somebody else a shot, but how about a more established director with an interesting track record? Hell, dust off Alex Proyas and give him shot (I say that as somebody who did not see Gods of Egypt). Or pay David Fincher a shitload of money and see what happens

Haven't seen Apocalypse but Marsden got screwed over in the OG Trilogy.

At least The Last Stand never happened now.

My biggest issue was Apocalypse being disposed of so quickly. For such a Big Bad he should've had a three-film arc.

right make Apocalypse like how Thanos is to Avengers. Apocalypse movie was like at least 3 movies crammed into one; X-Men Highschool years, Apocalypse Origin, and Magneto in the Woods

Bingo. Another total bungle job of a super-villain. Not quite as bad as the Mandarin, but close.

Yeah, if they had approached Apocalypse and the general story as more of a "Phase," would have been cool.

My main beef was Magneto being forgiven for destroying half the world.

How about Aoocalypse being 5 feet tall?

I'd say having Magneto kill millions of people and Xavier just letting that slide in the end was the worst thing.

Also Mystique was a leader of the Brotherhood in the comics, so it's not some huge change outside of her being an X-men in this alternate timeline where things would obviously be different.

I'm familiar with Mystique's history the problem is Lawrence can't really pull it off, it comes off sounding like somebody's X-men fan film.

Part of the problem is the makeup - I still think it looked a lot better on Rebecca Romijn, and her version of Mystique felt more dangerous. I like Lawrence as an actress, just not a fan of her Mystique.

It boggles my mind that First Class decided to keep her look from the previous movies. Her comic look, while much simpler, was also MUCH better.

Well I mean, they kept it cause that's what the character looks like to most people.

Oh absolutely, but that doesn't make it look any less shitty. Lol.

There's a GIF of Rebecca Romijn sliding across the floor & giving us the finger that disagrees with you.

Daaaaaaamn.
I BET it does.

I never warmed to Lawrence in the blue birthday suit. Romijn, however, always gave me a full 'rection.

A full 'rection, not just three-quarter husky?

I stand corrected: without seeing her in her full nude, milky-white suppleness, the blue does take away a quarter stiffness...

...it's fucking distracting.

You're a nice guy, but you and I are fucking DONE professionally.

I hate how he's basically fine at the end of the film. He's lost his family, and he just skips out the door. There's a real danger we're moving into parody now, as we have to continually find credible ways to have Magneto 'pulled back in' again and again.

Xavier keeps asking if I'm back...

I'm thinking I'm back!

Mystique sucked in Apocalypse (figuratively and not literally, sadly). Not sure why the studio kissed her ass so much considering it was her last X-movie. They should have built around people who were sticking around and relegated J-Law to a mutant gangbang cameo.

I thought the movie was perfectly decent for the first two reels, but the finale lacked any sense of excitement. It felt like a schoolyard tiff with added superpowers. They probably should have made it as a musical.

The bit with Magneto up there like Vitruvian man saying and essentially doing nothing for most of the last act is such a peculiar choice. Even when he finally relents and comes to the aid of the X-Men, you feel like cheering only because he's doing something at last.

So much of the film just seems to be Apocalypse wandering around.

I LIKED IT BRO I GIVE IT A B-

The bit I 'loved' with Mystique was when the mansion blew-up. The just frick'n blew-up!!!! Their lives were saved in a mirco-second by Quick Silver- yet still everyone was more interested in seeing Mystique- lol!

Overall I still liked the film, good action, fun characters we all know, but really lifeless. Just too much plot with no good pay off.

Totally agree. Well said.

I agree with all of this pretty much, but I still dug it.

No. Nope. Nada. Apocalypse was a train wreck. On par with the shit show
of the Last Stand. No bright spots and none of this bullshit silver
lining garbage.

stole the words right from my "mouth", dude! Fox must be really, REALLY desperate to keep the franchise going and avoid the rights reverting to Marvel to resort to this.... YIPES!!!!

The idea of a Marvel-made X-Men (and Fantastic Four for that matter) makes me giant sized in the pants.

There should be a Nuremberg-like trials for Crimes against Cinema. "But I was just following (studio) orders!"

This needs an injection of Matthew Vaughn, stat.

Good post and thanks for the smile.

Yea but I mean it's probably better than where things are going, give it 10 years and Reynolds will be helming everything X-Men, and we will all wish we had gouged out our fucking eyes AND EARS the decade before wondering why we didn't stop this with our money when he had the chance..

Agreed. Send his ass to a russian gulag!

Just give Evan Peters his own Quicksilver movie.

He wrote DoFP and Apocalypse, though. Both were decent. It's much more likely that other hands fucked up X3 than that other hands made those movies better.

In Hollywood people seem to fail upwards.

Hence the hilarity of inside-baseball movies like "The Player," "Barton Fink," "Adaptation," "Living in Oblivion," & "Mistress."

All five of these are fantastic films.

Provided they are male and caucasian

I KNEW I missed my calling in life...

Here's the problem with the Phoenix Saga as portrayed in both timelines and it has nothing to do with the lack of the Shi'ar. There was no emotional buildup. In the comic Jean Grey, or Marvel Girl if you will, was the proverbial "good girl". Sweet, devoted to Scott, and bland as hell. When the hellfire club was introduced and she became its black queen, it was a metaphor for her raw sexuality surfacing. The Phoenix Force was the culmination of that released sexual tension. That took years of buildup. In the X movies it's been "It's Jean Grey. And now she has Phoenix powers for....reasons." I gather no one at fox or the honchos of then X-movies have ever read the Phoenix Saga or any X-Men book. They must scan message boards and Reddit and see a buzzword or two and build a movie around it.

"Scan message boards" -- I love it! Hi there, Mr. Feige! I hope you don't leave out the girlfriend walking around in her underwear part of "Star Brand," when you guys finally have to move on to the "New Universe"!

Good breakdown, FJ.

the real problem was is they should've let singer do his thing, as i was so excited for last stand, as he actually gave a damn about the charcters, but no fox had to rush it, we need last stand out by this date, as again of all the x-men films x-2:x-men united was by far the best and i think singer would've done the same thing had they not rushed him, and given the dark phenoix the proper devlopment, as you knew after the last image in x-2:x-men united, singer had a grand plan for last stand and the dark phenoix saga and it wasn't the garbage that ratner gave us

Yeah nerdy girls raw sexuality surfacing is always an event