The Marvel blockbuster roller-coaster ride rumbled back into action in 2016 with the release of the latest mutant outing, X-Men Apocalypse, which hit the big screen with its ancient evil plot in early summer. Returning with a focus on the First Class crew of James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence, it saw the young X-Men taking on the seemingly indomitable form of Apocalypse, ushering in the devastation that results in Charles Xavier losing his hair.
There have been a number of big Marvel cinematic universe releases in 2015 with the highs of Ant-Man, the middle-of-the-road Avengers: Age Of Ultron, as well as the lows of Fantastic Four (2015). 2016 put in a lot of effort to outdo the previous year with another four movie releases, including Deadpool, Captain America: Civil War and Doctor Strange, so there was a lot to look forward to for comic book and super hero fans.
Release date
Cinema:
The UK release date was Thursday the 19th May 2016, which was unusually a little over a week ahead of the US where it went out nationwide on the 27th May 2016. As you’d expect from a big budget Marvel movie, it was available to view in both 2D and 3D, with the latter being a good option to maximise the visual impact of the film.
The release date in the UK gave it a completely free weekend to maximise box office sales as there were no other big new movies scheduled for the same week. However, it was preceded by Angry Birds in the previous week and Alice: Through The Looking Glass was out a week later, so it wasn’t entirely without competition.
DVD, Blu-ray and digital download:
It made its way to digital download purchase in the UK on the 1st November 2016 with the rental release a week later on the 7th November, along with the DVD and Blu-ray release.
Story
For anyone that knows Apocalypse from the comic books and cartoon TV series, you probably already know what the film is about. The megalomaniac has been around since the dawn of civilisation itself and thanks to being the first mutant to walk the planet, he was able to conquer man and rule as a god. Fortunately for the humanity, he had been out of action for a while, but when he wakes up after thousands of years, he picks things up where he left off, more powerful than ever and with only the X-Men standing in his way.
With centuries of mutant power acquisition and a few new recruits to his horsemen team of baddies, including a bitter and angry Magneto, he’s about to unleash the full force of his might on the world in a bid to rid the planet of humanity, leaving only his mutant chosen to rule over. Raven, Professor X, Beast and Quicksilver must rally together to save the world with the help of new recruits to Charles’ school for mutants, including Cyclops, Jean Grey, Nightcrawler and Jubilee.
Cast
In addition to James McAvoy (Arthur Christmas), Michael Fassbender (Assassin’s Creed) and Jennifer Lawrence (The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2) returning to the roles of Charles Xavier / Professor X, Erik Lehnsherr / Magneto and Raven Darkhölme / Mystique, Xmen: Apocalypse will also see Nicholas Hoult (Mad Max Fury Road) back as Hank McCoy / Beast and the super speed genius of Evan Peters as Peter Maximoff / Quicksilver, who made his first appearance in X-Men: Days Of Future Past.
Rose Byrne (The Internship) makes her comeback to the franchise from X-Men: First Class and the remaining introductions to the Professor X school of superhero includes Tye Sheridan (Scouts Guide To The Zombie Apocalypse) as Cyclops, Sophie Turner (Game Of Thrones) as Jean Grey, Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Road) as Nightcrawler and Lana Condor as Jubilee. The film also introduces Oscar Isaacs (Star Wars The Force Awakens) to the Marvel universe as the oldest bad guy in the book, Apocalypse, who comes replete with his four horsemen, Olivia Munn (Zoolander 2) as Psylocke, Lucas Till as Havok, Alexandra Shipp as Storm and Ben Hardy as Angel.
Production
Bryan Singer returned to the helm of the movie franchise as the director, having previously taken the seat for X-Men in 2000, X2 in 2003, and X-Men: Days Of Future Past in 2014, while also writing and producing X-Men: First Class. Simon Kinberg, Hutch Parker and Lauren Shuler Donner have all produced the film with the screenplay written by Kinberg working from a story collectively put together by him, Singer, Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris.
Review
When we first saw Oscar Isaacs in full costume as Apocalypse, we were a little dubious about the potential of the film, and while he does a goo job himself in bringing the all-powerful godling to life, the costume and makeup is less than impressive. It’s another action packed and visually stunning outing for Marvel in X-Men: Apocalypse and once again they’ve managed to come up with a very strong overarching plot that sits well within the history of the comic books and TV cartoon, while also taking the series up a notch in new creative directions. However, some of the story arcs are not very well thought through and the dialogue gets pretty week at times, taking away from some of the positives. Read our full X-men Apocalypse review for more details.
