Apocalypse (the Character, Not the Movie)
Apocalypse is the First Mutant. Under the name En Sabah Nur, he became known as a god throughout the history of ancient Egypt, able to perform feats such as create the pyramids. In the film, he has the ability to transfer his body and amass powers from other mutants, and it’s here where the film begins. During his transfer process, some of his subjects turn on him, destroying the pyramid and killing his Four Horseman. One of them is able to live long enough to create a shield that protects him for the next thousands of years.
The film implies that our titular villain is responsible for our various faiths and religions without really going into why or how that even works. Sure, the Four Horseman is valid, but how does that go for say, the Nazi belief system? Why did the Egyptians think that he was a “false god”? Why does he think that Charles and the human race are false gods? These are things that the film doesn’t answer, nor is it all that clear if he’s fully aware of the Phoenix power inside Jean Grey or just realizes that she is stronger than him.
Quicksilver’s Speed
First making his debut in 2014’s Days of Future Past, Quicksilver quickly became a fan favorite after his slow-mo sequence set to “Time in a Bottle.” After that, you’d think the X-Men would keep him around, but that was pretty much all he had to do in that film. In X-Men Apocalypse, he’s in much more of the film, as he searches for his dad, Magneto.
Evan Peters plays him well (if you were annoyed by him in Future Past, he’s more tolerable here), but to compensate for him having a brief appearance last time around, Apocalypse’s solution is to make him ridiculously overpowered in terms of his speed. It’s believable that he’d be able to take down a handful of guards, but being able to save roughly two dozen students and a dog while the X-Mansion is exploding seems like a bit much. Ditto getting a good minute or so to wail on Apocalypse, to the point where you wonder how the hell Psylocke, Angel, and Storm made the cut to be Horsemen if this kid is able to literally run circles around them. En Sabah Nur definitely should’ve come to Peter first.
Angel Being Angel
Somehow, through the magic of time travel I guess, the Angel from the third X-Men film was born in the 1970s and is a teenager (at the very least) here in X-Men Apocalypse. He’s dominating as a mutant cage fighter in Berlin until he fights Nightcrawler and gets one of his wings damaged as a result. During his drunken stupor, he’s visited by Apocalypse, Storm, and Psylocke and turned into the third Horseman, Death. Not unlike when Apocalypse makes him a Horseman in the comics, Angel is given metal wings and for some reason in the movies, he’s got a stupid facial tattoo.
A big problem in the movie across all characters is that the mutants have a tendency to forget they have their powers, and nowhere is this more apparent than with Angel. After Nightcrawler teleports Angel into a closed off section of debris, he stays in there for two or three minutes before deciding to use his razor sharp wings to cut himself an opening. He and Psylocke give chase to the X-Men as they try to flee after saving the Professor, but the X-Men teleport away and send their war plane crashing. Psylocke manages to bolt at the last minute, but Angel isn’t so lucky and dies in the plane crash.
Let’s just reiterate that: Angel, the guy with wings, dies in a plane crash. Yeah, it’s exactly as stupid as it sounds, and Apocalypse says what we’re all thinking at that moment as he calls his fallen Horseman “pathetic”.
Magneto in Auschwitz (Yes, Seriously)
After the events of Days of Future Past and murdering JFK (sorta), X-Men Apocalypse has Michael Fassbender’s Magneto living in Poland under a fake identity and forming a family. Unfortunately for him, a series of earthquakes caused by Apocalypse’ reawakening causes some equipment to almost kill a coworker, and he uses his powers in the heat of the moment to save him. Someone else in the factory saw him and reported him to the police, which ended with his wife and daughter killed shortly before Magneto murders the police. Apocalypse tracks him down and takes him to the place where he was born…Auschwitz.
This is a legit jarring moment. While Fassbender sells the hell out of the pain Erik is feeling as he taps into his powers, it’s incredibly awkward to have him dressed as a normal person while everyone else looks like they’re just coming from a cosplay shoot in the remnants of one of the most horrific sites on the planet. (Olivia Munn keeps looking around, bewildered, like even she can’t believe that they actually wrote this scene in.) Destroying the concentration camp is weird enough, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the ending, wherein Erik uses his abilities to terraform the planet before deciding to betray Apocalypse and help the X-Men defeat him. Somehow, the rest of the world is told that Erik contributed to Apocalypse’s defeat and more or less ignores the part where he turned Cairo and the part of the world to dust. He just rebuilds the mansion and refuses Charles’ offer to stay at the school, ending things with a “goodbye, old friend.” The fact that he just walks off and gets away with everything makes you wonder what other BS he can get away with in the eyes of Charles and everyone else.
Wolverine’s X-Men Cameo
Every X-Men movie has had Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, and it’s safe to say that next to Charles and Magneto, he’s the glue holding the franchise together. He’s the most marketable X-Man, hence the three solo movies about him, and Jackman is just really great in the role, even when the movies themselves aren’t. So it was a given that he’d show up in X-Men Apocalypse, especially considering that Mystique had more or less handed him off to the government at the end of Days of Future Past.
That being said, why the heck is he in the movie like this? The whole 20 minute or so plot divergence where the X-Men gets nabbed by General Stryker exists solely to have this cameo, and it’s incredibly awkward and stops the plot. Do you remember in Avengers 2 when Thor just sorta putzed around in a puddle and having spasms? This is pretty much that, just even more glaring of an attempt to set up his next solo movie. What should’ve been a big “OMG!!!!” moment is quashed down by it feeling incredibly awkward.
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