Preview: X-Men: Apocalypse

Starring: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Oscar Isaac, Rose Byrne, Sophie Turner, Tye Sheridan, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Evan Peters

Director: Bryan Singer

This film is huge. It’s huge and intense, and actually, it’s pretty awesome. (If you like your films epic, you can go so far as to see this one in 3D. Our screening was, and I kinda liked the added hugeness)

This time around, the X Men face their biggest foe ever. While Magneto lives like a normal guy in Poland, and Xavier teaches at his school, gathering mutant humans into a place of acceptance and safety, and Mystique travels the world freeing mutants who are forced into cage fights, something dark is being awakened deep underground in Egypt. Thousands of years ago, a creature reputed to be the first mutant has been hibernating. This man is capable of moving to new bodies, taking on the powers that the new body posesses, thereby collecting powers beyond anything you can imagine.

He traditionally gathers four mutant body guards, which become known as his four horsemen, and he routinely “cleanses” the world, wiping out civilisations. He’s very pro-mutant, and holds life as cheap. And now that he’s awake, he’s planning a complete cleanse of the entire planet, where the weak will fall and the powerful rise.

Magneto is caught up in Apocalypse’s game, and Mystique is determined to stop the bad guy and help her old friend, with the help of new recruits and students, Jean Grey, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, and Quicksilver.

As you can tell from this review, there’s loads going on in this film, and there are loads of characters, which makes for a long film. But it never feels long, or confusing. It’s a huge adventure, with great humour, heart break and set peices that are mind blowing. It should keep fans happy, and I think it will make a few new converts to the comic book franchise as well.

Highly recommended.

See It If: you like your action huge, your fights epic and your soundtracks intense… It’s a great film.