Special Edition Podcast
Show Notes
The X-Men return to the silver screen with the latest installment, X-Men: Apocalypse, directed by Bryan Singer and featuring iFanboy fave, Oscar Isaac as well as Michael Fassbender and all the other X-Men peoples. Resident X-Men fanatic Ron Richards is joined by Conor Kilpatrick and Mike Romo to bask in the mutant glory.
Running Time: 00:43:12
Music:
“Countess Bathory”
Venom
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See, I thought First Class (after the first twenty minutes) was “garbage” to quote Ron and Days of Future Past was “A” quality. I’m so disappointed that this was a flop. I’ll probably just rent it.
What was the metal song on the soundtrack when Angel is transformed into Archangel? I thought it might be Metallica, but during the credits at the end I only spotted the Venom tune used for the podcast. It sounded different than that to me…
So, according to the film’s IMDB trivia page, it was Metallica’s Four Horsemen from the Kill em All album.
Correct, it’s Metallica “Four Horsemen”, which as I mentioned on the podcast was a little too on the nose for me
I enjoyed Apocalypse but I do agree it is the weakest of the the last three X-Men movies. There have been very few comic book movies I have seen that I was utterly disappointed with and this film was far from one of those. Was it perfect? By no means, but I would have much difficulty naming any flick that I did not have at least minor issues with.
Having just listened to this podcast, I was curious on if the ifanboy film brain trust was going to cover the next Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie that is out soon? I was surprised that it was not mentioned at the end during the discussion about comic book movies coming out this year. I always look forward to what you all thing of the comic book movies that come out, though I don’t always agree with your views (i.e Ron’s BvS ‘hot garbage’ rant).
I would describe our interest in these new TURTLES films as less than zero, unfortunately.
I can understand the Conor. I was not the biggest fan of the last TMNT film but I have a 12 year old son who loved that last one and I will take him to see it. Plus I dig Stephen Amell from ‘Arrow’ and am interested to see his take on Casey Jones. And live-action Krang, Bebop and Rocksteady as well.
I remember during the Age of Ultron review Conor said something like “no matter what, I just get so much joy from seeing these characters together” and maybe that’s how I feel about the X-Men because I loved this movie. [Sorry if you touch on some of this, but I turned off the cast after a bit because I sensed the direction it was going and I plan to see it a 2nd time, then listen to the rest].
I loved the nods to the comics: like in Uncanny X-Men (#117) Xavier catches Storm picking his pocket and recruits her, while in this movie (because it’s an alternate timeline thanks to DOFP) it’s now Apocalypse who encounters Storm stealing. And Caliban is a black market dealer of mutant identities, playing off his comic power ability to identify them.
I loved the playful moments like Scott accidentally taking out the tree and Nightcrawler posing for his ID photo.
I also felt there were some really powerful moments like Erik singing to his daughter, when Moira getting her memories back, and Quicksilver saying he is always too late (despite his speed).
Finally, I liked that this wasn’t actually shot like a typical disaster movie, by which I mean it’s not all buildings falling down and debris. Instead, Magneto’s powers form these kind of beautiful, geometric arches so even the destruction is visually interesting. Also the X-Men bring down Apocalypse by focusing all their powers on him and working as a team, not surrounded by buildings going down (like in Man of Steel, Avengers, and Age of Ultron).
The main problem is Singer’s editing. In place of 20 minutes at Weapon X, we could have had the kids at the mall scene for 10 minutes, which would have made the movie shorter and more fun. Then, the End Credits could have been Wolverine breaking out of Weapon X as the facility would have been partially destroyed by Magneto’s powers at the end. Also, we didn’t need Jean’s dream or the Blob.
Ultimately, as I said before, seeing a young Cyclops, Jean, and Storm on screen brought me immense joy and and point-by-point is meaningless compared to the fact that I just loved watching it. Sorry you guys didn’t feel the same!
Olivia Munn turned down Deadpool to do this.
From a business standpoint I get why she would. No one would have predicted that DEADPOOL would be as huge as it was and that this would be as bad as it was. A betting man would choose the opposite. Plus, here she’s playing a popular and widely recognized name character vs. “the girlfriend part” in DEADPOOL.
Granted, “the girlfriend part” was a better part than Psylocke ended up being, but I keep saying “the girlfriend part” because I have no clue what her name was. Which is one reason why, I’m sure, it seemed like the smart bet to go with Psylocke.
I wonder what she got to read before she got out her signin’ pen.
I couldn’t really relate to your hate for Batman versus Superman, but after thinking about it for a couple of days, I think you voiced my opinion on this movie beter than I could have :-). The movie in itself isn’t that bad, but it was boooooooooooring. There was nothing that made me even remotely invested in the story and the characters. A real shame, could have been a real fun story.
I actually enjoyed “X-Men: Apocalypse.” I think it’s better than its reviews (which is fast becoming my mantra for 2016) but I also admit that what we see Apocalypse doing in this film somewhat reminded me of what Sybok does in “Star Trek V: The Final Frontier” – i.e. mysteriously walking around, forcefully leading us to a supposedly better existence, using our friends’ pain to convert them into followers. It distracted me a bit while watching X-M:A because I kept wondering what Larry Luckinbill was up to these days, and then I also remembered how he’s married to Lucie Arnaz, etc.
Question: In the ancient Egypt prologue, when we see En Sabah Nur being defended by his then-Four Horsemen in his transfer chamber – are any/all of those four mutants supposed to be recognizable characters?
I liked the movie. I feel it obviously falls between the recent greats like Ironman, captain america, GOTG, deadpool… but it is a class above train wrecks like BvS, Green Lantern, X-Men Last Stand, Fantastic Four… It was definitely the weakest since first class and it definitely feels like an old breed of superhero movie, but I still felt like it managed to entertain me. I didn’t leave the movie outraged and embarrassed to me a fan of this stuff. I just left wishing it could have been a tighter more polished movie.
I kinda wished the story was more about the kids. I would have been fine if the whole movie was about Jean, Scott, Jubilee and Nightcrawler being kids and learning at the school. I think that’s one of the huge missteps of the movie is that they spent too much time with the legacy characters from the previous movie instead on concentrating on the new. Maybe that New Mutants movie will give us that.
Complain, complain, complain…
I can’t bring myself to deal with the hypercritical comments by the podcast.
It had solid tension throughout. I was never bored.
Evan Peters made the movie…
Both Quicksilver and Nightcrawler have interesting dimensions that I’m naturally gravitating to.
I want more, much more of those two, and characters portrayed in a likewise fashion.
I’ve very impressed overall by the film, and have no concerns about continuity, and alignment with the comics.
Singer breathes new life into atleast two characters in one film (Quicksilver and Nightcrawler) and that’s a pretty successful feat for one movie.
The question I keep asking myself is when will Stevie Hunter get her time in the spotlight!
In all seriousness I know people are scrambling for space, the Shiar and a proper Phoenix Saga, but I think that it yet again the wrong direction. These X-Men movies have been focusing too much on spectacle. They rush to the hugest plotlines. The biggest enemies. The problem is always that we don’t have enough character work under our belt for it to feel earned.
I think the most successful story in the series is still First Class and I think it is successful because it didn’t try to reach for the big plotlines. It gave us a much smaller villain in Shaw. They gave us personnel stakes by attaching him to Eric’s backstory. Then they told a story about the characters that climaxed in a mission , which was the culmination of all the themes presented in the movie. Granted Shaw’s plan didn’t make perfect sense and his henchmen were little better than cardboard standees, but I still think it worked. It worked because we got to live with the characters long enough for the stakes to feel earned at the end.
So I spent the entire week doing nothing but contemplating this movie and I’m convinced my major issues with the movie all take place in the back end. Days Of Future Past worked because of didn’t introduce too many new characters so the ones we got all had enough screen time to still feel like well fleshed out characters. In my opinion Apoc didn’t work as well because we got the split cast now and there was an unwillingness to minimize the legacy character’s screen time to build up the new kids’ enough. They should have definitely cut out that Weapon X sequence. It was pointless and problematic for the continuity. Give us less of the Horsemen standing around on that cliff. Spent some more time with Jean, Scott, Nightcrawler and Jubilee so we could properly get to know them and care about them before they were rushed off to war (and in Jubilee’s case off to no where unfortunately). Spend more time with our legacy characters mentoring the students and perhaps don’t blow up the mansion just to rebuild it at the end.
I think it would have been much more compelling if Charles was forced into the horseman role and Eric and Raven had to mentor the students and rally the team against the bads. As it is you get a lot of scenes where Charles and Eric basically do nothing toward the back end of the movie and worse just spit out redundant dialogue, which wastes screen time (we didn’t need the clips from the previous movies at all). Also Eric sucking the metal out of the planet was doing what? Changing the magnetic poles? How was that making a better world. His whole arc just didn’t makes sense after his family died. The Charles reaching everyone’s mind plot device should have been the movie’s big trump. A mind control plot amplified by Apoc would have been much more sensible and compelling. Let Jean face off against a brainwashed Charles (maybe backed up by Psylocke since she should also be psychic). Let Raven convince Ororo to switch sides. Let Nightcrawler take on Angel. Let the rest take on Apoc who should have been a much bigger threat physically.
Venom > Metallica
I heard Ryan Ottley fell asleep during this, maybe he was in your theatre?