X-Men: Apocalypse trailer

There are a couple issues to watching a trailer at work. First off, you’re probably watching it on a phone because you don’t want to abuse the privileges of having a computer that has access to YouTube at work. Secondly, you can watch it a couple times but you have to be pretty subtle about it because you don’t want someone thinking that all you’re doing at work all day is watching YouTube videos. So whereas I watched the Batman v Superman trailer about a hundred times the first time it came out, I have only watched the X-men Apocalypse trailer about 50 times.

Now I know the X-men have never really been an overly happy franchise, but the first thing I’ll mention about this trailer is that it is just a downer. This trailer is dark as hell. I swear if they replaced all the superhero shots in this trailer (and there are a lot of them) with more ambiance and a little bit scarier imagery, this probably could pass for a horror film.

From what I know of the movie and what I’ve gathered from this trailer, X-men Apocalypse takes place in the 80s as Charles Xavier has begun building up his school for gifted youngsters. And there are a lot of them in this one. You see Jean Grey (played by Sansa Stark, Sophie Turner). You see a quick shot of Cyclops (played by Tye Sheridan), you see Nightcrawler, you see Jubillee, you see Storm (although I don’t think she’s with Xavier quite yet). And then you see all the characters that you’ve come to know in past movies. Nicholas Hoult comes back as Hank McCoy (Or Beast). JLaw returns as Mystique. They also brought back Lucas Till or Havok, as a partner of Xavier. This works perfectly because I think in the comics, Havok is related to Scott Summers/Cyclops and I think they’re going to capitalize on that in this movie. And of course, Quicksilver (played by Evan Peters) returns. This is just a down right packed crowd for this movie. All the while, the X-men discover the presence of an ancient mutant many have believed to be the first mutant.

Enter Apocalypse. We saw a glimpse of Apocalypse at the end of Days of Future Past and if you were like me and didn’t read the comics, you have no idea who or what Apocalypse is. It wasn’t until after that I researched and figured out who Apocalypse is and my god, this movie is going to be crazy!

If you still don’t know, the trailer does a good job at describing a mutant who has existed for centuries and is probably the most powerful mutant there is. He also travels with four mutants who are his four horsemen, the allegory being from the Bible and they of course reference that. It seems like the X-men are delving into a territory that I never thought they would delve into but now that they are it makes total sense.

In the past, the X-men have always been outcasts, symbols of disenfranchised groups the same way Professor X and Magneto were the mutant versions of Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X. And as great as that storyline is, it’s been done in almost all the X-men movies we’ve seen so far. But what I think Apocalypse is doing is focusing on the portion of the population that would look at people like the X-men and see them as gods. And it kind of seems like that is what is happening with Apocalypse. He doesn’t seem so much like a supervillain as he does a cult leader.

And the four horsemen are the interesting part mainly because of that shout out to the great imagery of the Apocalypse from the Bible. I think it was revealed a while ago that the four horsemen were going to be Psylocke (played by Olivia Munn) Arch Angel (played by Ben Hardy), Storm (played by Alexandra Shipp), and Magneto (played once again by Michael Fassbender).

What’s even more exciting about this movie is that everything is fresh and new due to the events of X-men Days of Future Past. Essentially the events of the previous X-men trilogy are null and void and they can do whatever they want with this franchise again and this is the first outing that we actually get to see that rebooted/repurposed world that I think a lot of people are excited to see.
Now during comic-con a trailer for this movie dropped and it was leaked on the internet. It was a pretty fuzzy version so I didn’t make a post on it because I only deal with the actual stuff that I can see. But I remember that a lot of people were complaining about the look of Apocalypse after that trailer and the release of his image in a magazine a while back.

Now Apocalypse is played by Oscar Issacs who I found might be one of my favorite up and coming actors, especially if I enjoy his performance in Star Wars (ONE WEEK). From this trailer, I really looking forward to his performance because the way that they positioned him and gave him voice overs in this trailer, it really gave it a kind of creepy and ambianced feel to the movie. However… I did notice that they didn’t have any direct shots of Apocalypse. There were scenes where you saw him in the shot but he wasn’t the focus of the shot so the average viewer wouldn’t exactly know what they were looking at. And I think that was a little bit intentional mainly due to the reaction that people had to Apocalypse when they first saw him. Now I’ve heard a couple of criticisms on the look of Apocalypse in this movie, how he looks like a power rangers villain, how he just looks a little bit silly, and how he doesn’t exactly look like the character from the comics.

My opinion: I’m not really excited nor am I disappointed with the look of Apocalypse in this trailer at least. I’ve had any exposure to Apocalypse before this movie so I have no real ties to the look he had in the comics. I don’t know which Power Ranger villain people are referring to when they say he looks like one because I didn’t watch Power Rangers so there is no negative connection I have with the look. I think its just a look they decided for the character and I think, for now, it works. I’m not jumping up and down for it, but at the same time I’m not hating on it.

Again, the big draw of this trailer was the ambiance of it. They’re going for a much darker tone than past movies and I think that’s surprising, especially since X-men was never really light to begin with.
Now… the one problem with this film is mainly in the fact that Days of Future Past kind of shot this movie in the foot. At the end of Days of Future Past, Logan wakes up from his journey back in the

future in the time he’s supposed to be in. Because of what he did however, the future has changed. Cyclops is still alive, Jean Grey didn’t go all cardboard cut-out Phoenix on us, everyone is alive. And yeah, Charles says to Logan, there’s a lot you need to be caught up on, but the movie basically states that all the characters we knew and loved in the original trilogy survive this encounter with Apocalypse. We saw Beast in this trailer, he survives because Kelsey Grammer is walking around being all blue Kelsey Grammer. Storm is gonna switch sides halfway through this movie and stop being a slave to Apocalypse and she’s going to survive.

Now, that ending scene could be just interpreted as a final send off for the original cast and it doesn’t mean that they’re going to live through this movie, but there’s so much going against that idea that I just don’t see much of the stakes in this movie. I mean I know it is Apocalypse and he can change the course of the future if he wanted to I suppose, but it kind of seems like things could get confusing that way.

Maybe that won’t be a huge deal, I'm sure it will still have enough suspense to keep me interested and I'm sure this movie is going to be good, but for one reason or another, I'm not overly excited for this movie.

Let's go back a little bit. When X-men Days of Future Past came out, I thought the trailer was awesome. I was just overly excited for that movie because I was waiting for the mash up of old and new X-men.

While I was expecting a good comic book movie, not only were my expectations blown and I got a great comic book movie, I got a great movie. X-men: Days of Future Past goes back and forth with Captain America: The Winter Soldier, as the best comic book movie of 2014 but out of all the movies in general, I just thought Days of Future Past was an amazing movie.

I might have to do a recap review of it to see if it still holds up now, or if it was just an awesome first viewing, but I think this movie maybe didn't take comic book movies to a new level, but was in a larger level of its own that its hard to imagine a sequel to it.

And if I was going to imagine a sequel, I don't think I imagined this.

The trailer is good, I just don't think it blew me away as some of the other trailers this year have like Batman V Superman, Civil War or even in comparison to the trailer for Days of Future Past.

I think if it had come out at a different time when I wasn't comparing it to those other trailers, maybe I'd be more excited about it, but I had my initial freak out, then the more I watched it, I didn't get more excited about it, I just kind of accepted it for what it was.

Now, knowing Bryan Singer and how he has handled the X-men Franchise, I know that this movie is probably going to be amazing. But I'm not blown away from this trailer.

Couple footnotes to go along before I wrap up.

 Jennifer Lawrence... can I marry you?

She looks absolutely stunning. The character of Mystique is probably going to be pushed to the absolute level of development that any character has ever been brought. And she commits to this franchise even though most likely there's just a contract keeping her from bolting out of this movie and doing something more dramatic.

I'm excited just to see Mystique in this movie and its all because of JLaw, I'm not even a big fan of the character, but she just looks absolutely stunning and her character sounds interesting in this trailer. If this trailer did anything right, its showing the average movie going audience that JLaw is back and she's still awesome.

The other thing worth mentioning is James McEvoy as Charles Xavier. He still continues to be an amazing Professor X and like Lawrence, I'm incredibly excited to see him in this movie again. And while I love how this movie is definitely a period piece like the last two have been, there is something that I am excited for and I think the rest of the comic book community is too. And its this...

  

McEvoy is bald Xavier finally!

And he looks amazing. There are a couple people who would look silly trying to recreate the absolute perfect baldness of Patrick Stewart, but McEvoy pulls it off very well and I'm really looking forward to this character, who has already become my favorite X-men character become even more developed.

Finally, there is no Wolverine to be seen in this trailer. Its not surprising, I think if Wolverine does show up its only going to be a cameo or an end credit scene to tease The Wolverine 3 or as I like to call it, Old Man Logan. But maybe that's what made it strange. I think X-men maybe held onto Wolverine for so long that its odd seeing an X-men movie without him. I mean we saw it with First Class but who knows, it could get a little bit weird.

Let me be clear, there is nothing wrong with this trailer. Its not like they gave anything away like Batman v Superman, or it looked stupid (or stupidly awesome) like the new Independence Day trailer does (Oh we will get to that in a second).

I just didn't care for it. It looks awesome, I'm pumped for this movie, but I think it didn't excite me the way other trailers have this year. Maybe it was because I watched it at work, but maybe it just wasn't as exciting as it could have been.

What do you think? Did you like the X-men Apocalypse trailer? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as requests for future movie reviews or something you want to hear my opinion on. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews as well as live tweets from certain movies that I watch.

I'll leave you with this. I'm not totally sure if I'm going to do a whole rant on the new Independence Day trailer as I have never really been a huge fan of the first movie to begin with, however, it is a really funny and silly trailer and it is no doubt going to be a popcorn action flick. However, if we're giving the sparknotes edition of my thoughts on it, I thought it looked a little too cheesy. Less Independence Day, more like Sharknado. I don't know, let me know what you think of the trailer as well. Enjoy!