X-Men Apocalypse

[TheSlamma]

gonna be "meh" just like the last few.

 

[gorcorps]

More impressive is he is one of the few actors to avoid steroids to bulk up for the roll. He said he was very disappointed in his physical condition in the first x-men movie and spent the next few years training. You can tell it was a much slower gradual change than someone like Christian Bale after "The Machinist", he had 6 months to prepare for Batman and suddenly 6 months after being a skinny motherfucker he is twice that weight and well cut? Sure that's all natural gains /s

Not sure that's a direct comparison though. Not that you're wrong, but Bale's batman was nowhere near the bulk of Jackman on the right. Batman was cut, but he wasn't the veiny gigantic monster that Jackman was trying to get to (which fits Wolverine).

 

[mnewsham]

To be fair it's a lot easier to put weight on when you've been starved than it probably is to get ripped.

Sure it would be easier to bulk up from starving, but over 16lbs per month for 6 months? And looking as muscled as he did in batman... I'll never believe that was all natural.

 

[poofyhairguy]

2 of 4 good Superman flicks

The first one and the fourth one?

 

[zinfamous]

The first one and the fourth one?

Superman 4! Naw man, Superman 3 with Richard Pryor was the best, THE BEST! No, not really, but as a kid watching that daily on HBO, it seemed amazing.

I think 1 and 2 were the best of those. 2 gets short shrift because of the original theatrical cut. But it's hard to top good superman vs evil superman (because he doesn't comb his hair). Evil superman doing evil by straightening the Tower of Pisa is classically awesome in a stupid way. I like how the tame 80s idea of evil is basically "a jerk." Maybe the censors and the sensibility of the public at the time couldn't handle Superman flying to Ethiopia and stealing UN bread from starving kids. Too soon, maybe?

 

[mikeymikec]

I just watched X-Men: Apocalypse and it seemed to me like a very generic, technically competent, by-the-numbers comic book movie flick. Exactly the kind of thing I want to avoid

I agree with the criticisms I've heard about it (weak story, too many underdeveloped characters), and I think there's just too much to pack into one film. I would have gone for two films, the finale of the first being a plot twist (and revealing Apocalypse) and cliff-hanger for the second. I would have based most of the first film to be the kind of thing I saw in the cartoons, a conspiracy involving some other faction but secretly (unknowingly by the faction?) backed by Apocalypse. The battle lines would be drawn a certain way in the first film (maybe until the reveal), then re-drawn as the true intentions are revealed in the finale of the first film.

While the Apocalypse character from that film doesn't look like the type to hang around behind the scenes, it would have made sense considering the first time he was betrayed in that film, causing him to think his strategy through more carefully and not make him an obvious target for conspiracy and betrayal.

IMO perhaps what that story needed was a bit of apocalypse, or at least a partially averted one; instead we had a few scenes showing heavy yet localised damage. If the faction I first mentioned had been say Friends of Humanity playing humanity against mutants (which is staple X-Men material) and succeeding, then when the battle lines are re-drawn, perhaps the remaining human forces help defeat Apocalypse in some way that is truly symbiotic with mutants.

Kudos to the screenplay writers for coming up with a way to not bench Professor X every time though

 

[Ruptga]

smh @ "eyes going black" cliché.

Also, the portrayal of Apocalypse so far as me worried that we're going to get another shouty, generic, two-dimensional villain, for example the one out of Thor 2.

I was so pissed off by that movie. They had loads of characters that were interesting or had obvious potential (or both), great visual design, a worldbuilding backstory that meshed with everything, and they completely wasted all of it. It was like baking and decorating a fancy tiered cake then putting an m80 on top. Yes, boom is great and all, but why go to all that other trouble if that's all they're going to do? It's an irritating trend, or it would be if I weren't already dead inside.

 

[mikeymikec]

Having a quick flick through it again because certain things were bothering me...

1 - Did anyone notice Angel sustaining a permanent injury during the cage match? I just watched it again, and just like Magneto's reaction to the police, it is very tamely portrayed. Considering Magneto's past and the cause of his reaction to the police, and seemingly how his involvement in most of the film was driven by revenge, it seems very understated, to the point of Saturday morning cartoons.

2 - Repetition involving references to X-Men 1 & 2. The cage match for example, Eric and Charles talking at the end (there's probably more than that). What was the point? Was Bryan Singer trying to re-live his glory days? Was it really a coincidence that one of the credits at the start of the film for some production company was a silhouette of the line-up from 'The Usual Suspects' (also a Singer movie)?

3 - I can't help but think (maybe exacerbated by Magneto's understated reaction I mentioned) that a character like Magneto with his past would more keenly recognise unnecessary cruelty and ruthlessness in others as well as himself, and it seems to me that someone like him sees Apocalypse kill the factory workers without a moment's thought purely because he wants Magneto, and Magneto just shrugs and follows the guy is IMO just a tad implausible. Magneto lived with those people, likely counted at least some of them as friends and he went to the factory for revenge made all the more bitter because of the perceived betrayal and Apocalypse simply swats them aside. To make it even more implausible, Magneto's compassion is successfully appealed to later.

 

[Ancalagon44]

3 - I can't help but think (maybe exacerbated by Magneto's understated reaction I mentioned) that a character like Magneto with his past would more keenly recognise unnecessary cruelty and ruthlessness in others as well as himself, and it seems to me that someone like him sees Apocalypse kill the factory workers without a moment's thought purely because he wants Magneto, and Magneto just shrugs and follows the guy is IMO just a tad implausible. Magneto lived with those people, likely counted at least some of them as friends and he went to the factory for revenge made all the more bitter because of the perceived betrayal and Apocalypse simply swats them aside. To make it even more implausible, Magneto's compassion is successfully appealed to later.

I had a hard time accepting that Magneto would be okay with committing genocide. I mean, in the finale. I find it difficult to accept that Magneto would ever believe that destroying every single human living would be the only way forward.