‘X-Men’ packs a punch for Lawrence and McAvoy

X-Men: Apocalypse will hittheaters May 27th, 2016, followed by Wolverine 3 on March 3rd, 2017, and unannounced X-Men films on October 6th, 2017 (possibly Gambit), January 12th, 2018 (possibly Deadpool 2), and July 13th, 2018. I was an old “Star Trek” fan. How many times do I need to point out that 3D action movies are blurry and dark and probably better in 2D? “And it’s just fun to play a small part in such a big ensemble cast”.

It’s hard to remember that 2000’s X-Men was in its way a pioneering movie, pre-dating Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man series, Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy and the now-ubiquitous Marvel Cinematic Universe in establishing that there was an audience hungry for comic-book adventures brought to life.

That conversation led quickly to Apocalypse. Members of the cast (Sophie Turner, Tye Sheridan, Lana Condor, and Kodi Smit-McPhee) spent days filming in a mall dressed to look like it was right out of the 80s, but in editing, the scenes they filmed there were chopped down dramatically. “It also felt interesting to be able to create a new villain that would be more powerful than Magneto and would turn Magneto, who’s been this messianic leader, into a follower”.

“Everyone was so welcoming, it was good”, said Turner of joining the franchise veterans. “She’s very vulnerable and alienated, and she just wants to be like a normal teenager”. They’re all great actors and great people, and I had great experiences with them.

It’s a nod toward potentially a lot of different movies.

Speaking to Collider about the deleted scenes, Kinberg explained, “It was like a montage, more than it was sort of any sequence or narrative piece of the movie”.

It is here in Westchester County – and then in East Berlin and the forests of Poland, among other fave tourist spots – that the X-Men are introduced (or reintroduced, if you’ve been keeping up). It’s overstuffed with characters who talk loud and say nothing in a mishmash narrative weighed down by ambitions with little substance. But it’s not the focus. The only reasonable explanation I can come up with is the fact that expectations for Apocalypse were much higher than The Last Stand, and when the film failed to live up to those expectations it ultimately found itself slammed by critics.