X-MEN: APOCALYPSE

Twentieth-Century Fox/Marvel

Rated PG-13

Running Time: 144 Minutes

Click below to watch a trailer of X-Men: Apocalypse from YouTube.
 

In Twentieth-Century Fox/Marvel's X-Men: Apocalypse, Professor Charles Xavier/James McAvoy and his mutant students, must go up against the first mutant Apocalypse/Oscar Isaac and his Four Horseman, Storm/Alexandra Shipp, Psylocke/Olivia Munn, Angel/Ben Hardy, and Magneto/Michael Fassbender to stop Apocalypse/Isaac from literally destroying the world.

Produced, Written and Directed by Bryan Singer and based on the X-Men characters from Marvel Comics, this is the ninth film in the X-Men series and a sequel to X-Men: Days of Future Past. Mutant/god Apocalypse/Isaac, who takes other people's powers to make him even more powerful, awakens after being buried by his worshipers since the year 3600 BC. Seeing the world as it is today in 1983, and still feeling angry at being betrayed by his worshippers - Apocalypse/Isaac decides to destroy the world because they are lost, and wants to remake it with the strongest in control as he seeks out his new Four Horsemen and having them devoting themselves to him as his children.

With Apocalypse/Isaac considering himself a god, I think this is the most religious of the X-Men movies and has a lot of Old Testament themes to it. The movie definitely has a more disaster movie feel to it, instead of just an action movie. The launching of the nuclear missiles is both intimidating, and yes we've seen this in other disaster movies.  There was not enough desperation from the government for me when they had lost control of their nuclear missiles. Although with all of the world-wide destruction in the movie, you do not feel all of the death from that as the cities get destroyed. The deaths that you feel are the more intimate, one on one deaths.

Being released in 2016, with Apocalypse's first appearance in an X-Men movie, this marks Apocalypse's 30 anniversary since his first appearance in the X-Men comics (July1986).

Due to the international feel of the movie, there are subtitles for the various languages - including Egyptian and a very rudimentary Polish language.

With the new timeline, at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, there is a younger group of the core of X-Men, basically children learning how to control their powers, with Jean Grey/Sophie Turner, Scott Summers/Tye Sheridan, Nightcrawler/Kodi Smit-McPhee, and newcomers Quicksilver/Evan Peters and Jubilee/Lana Condor - although Condor did not get to do anything with her powers, but I am looking forward to seeing them in future movies. Quicksilver's/Peters scenes I think are the most fun. Returning X-Men Raven/Jennifer Lawrence, Hank McCoy/Nicholas Hoult, and Havok/Lucas Till continue their roles - as well as returning CIA agent Moira MacTaggert/Rose Byrne, who is also the unrequited love interest of Xavier/McAvoy. McAvoy finally got to shave his head for his role as Xavier.

I think this was Michael Fassbender's best characterization of his character Magneto in the X-Men movies. It definitely gave me the feels for him and his family in this movie, which also includes his return to Auschwitz.

It was great seeing Tomas Lemarquis as Caliban, thus setting up the Morlocks in the X-Men Universe.

One of the fun things in the movie is that they showed a clip of the Star Trek episode "Who Mourns for Adonais" as one of Apocalypse/Isaac's first experiences to the modern world. I wish they would have used a better clip from that episode to make it even more fun.

Stan Lee makes his appearance in the middle of the movie, along with his wife Joanie Lee.

There is an awesome uncredited cameo in the movie.

In the beginning of the movie - at least in my theater showing - Alexandra Shipp, who plays Storm, talks about how much she enjoyed playing the role and that hundreds of people worked to put together this movie and that everyone should enjoy it. This insert seems like an appeal to all of the fanboys who have been criticizing comic book films lately.

I saw the movie in RealD 3D. Outside of a few action scenes and the opening credits, I mostly did not notice the 3D - which gave depth into the movie, instead of things coming out at you.

There is one after credits scene, which sets up new elements for the X-Men universe, including the upcoming Wolverine sequel. There was also one scene in the movie, that to me, sets up a possible Phoenix story, while Psylocke/Munn sets up the X-Force movie.

Click below to watch another movie trailer of X-Men: Apocalypse from YouTube.



Click below to watch a final movie trailer of X-Men: Apocalypse from YouTube.



Rated PG-13 for violence. Running time: 144 Minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

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STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Rated PG-13

Running time: 135 Minutes

Click below to watch a movie trailer of Star Wars: The Force Awakens from YouTube.
 

In Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the old generation meets the new in this Star Wars sequel.

The seventh installment of the Star Wars series, the movie takes place thirty years after Star Wars: Return of the Jedi - and released thirty-two years after Return of the Jedi, thirty-eight years after Star Wars: A New Hope. Produced, Written, along with Lawrence Kasdan, and Directed by J.J. Abrams, Based on Characters Created by George Lucas, this is a worthy successor to the Star Wars legacy and the first of a new trilogy. With the transition of Lucasfilm over to Disney, Lucas stated that this was a way to pass Star Wars on to a new generation of filmmakers. The movie has all the elements of a Star Wars film including the original cast and I felt that the movie has more action and more story in this movie than in the other movies. I think that is mainly because, not only does the movie have the feeling of the original trilogy, the movie also has the feeling of the Star Wars Expanded Universe.

Thirty years after Return of the Jedi - Luke Skywalker/Mark Hamill, the last Jedi has disappeared. The First Order has risen from the fallen Galactic Empire seeks to eliminate Luke/Hamill and the Republic. The Resistance, led by Luke's twin Sister Leia Organa/Carrie Fisher opposes The First Order while looking for Luke/Hamill.

Meanwhile, former stormtrooper Finn/John Boyega escapes the First Order with the help of pilot Poe Dameron/Oscar Isaac and crash on a desert planet - where Finn meets scavenger Rey/Daisy Ridley as they continue to escape from the First Order with the help of Han Solo/Harrison Ford and get to the Resistance with a map to find Luke/Hamill.

I saw this movie at a 9:00 am Saturday showing opening weekend and the theater was packed. The audience reacted positively to the movie and cheered when the Star Wars logo appeared. They also cheered when Han Solo/Harrison Ford as well as the Millennium Falcon appeared. While the original cast appeared in the movie, the movie definitely is the film of the new generation - Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac. Nonetheless, Harrison Ford received top billing in the movie - his first time for a Star Wars film, as well as being the first non-Jedi character to be credited first in the series.

It was wonderful to hear John Williams music during the opening title crawl. I knew I was finally watching a Star Wars movie after all these years when I heard the music. Not only does the movie has new music like Rey's theme, but the movie also uses familiar music like Luke's theme. Just hearing the full 90 piece orchestra and 24-voice men's chorus made me feel like a teenager again experiencing a Star Wars movie. There were times where I teared up a little during the movie as well as yelling YES during some of the scenes.

The aerial battles and the ground battles were incredible for me and felt more realistic when done on planet as compared to being done out in space. Watching in 3D - while I blinked a couple of times with debris flying out at me - at times the aerial and space battles felt like watching a video game to me. The stormtroopers were more ruthless and deadly than in the previous movies, especially one particular stormtrooper. I am looking forward to how the filmmakers are going to treat Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which is coming out in 2016 and is supposed to be more of a war movie than a space movie.

There are more new aliens, although most of them were not major characters. The movie does have some subtitles for an alien language that was spoken.

The droid BB-8 is an actual droid created by Disney Research and not CGI and seven different BB units were used in the film with the actors. It was wonderful to see BB-8 in action and definitely had a personality and felt like the new R2-D2 for the movie. The movie used more practical miniature models and real locations rather than CGI to make it aesthetically closer to the original trilogy. Interestingly enough, at $200 million dollars, this is the highest budgeted Star Wars film so far.

While this is the second Star Wars film that is released in IMAX, this is the first film using IMAX cameras on some scenes during filming. Star Wars: The Force Awakens is being shown on every IMAX screen in North America for four straight weeks.

By the time the movie was over, you definitely get the feeling that there will be more stories to tell and more movies - and it has been announced that everyone will be back for the sequel, Star Wars: Episode VIII.

At the end of the movie the audience applauded.

J.J. Abrams Director's credit as with all the other credits appeared at the end of the movie, just like in all of the other Star Wars movies.

At $100 million, Star Wars: The Force Awakens broke the record for pre-sales, breaking the previous pre-sale record holder The Dark Knight Rises three times over which had $25 million in pre-sales as well as initially crashing the ticket selling websites after starting ticket sales. It also had a record breaking $57 million from Thursday night "previews" and the first film to gross more than $100,million in a "single" day, the fastest to $100 million. This is significant as this is the first live-action Star Wars movie released in December with the widest December release while all the previous movies had been released in the month of May. As of 2015, Star Wars: The Force Awakens holds the record for highest grossing opening weekend at $215 million. Click this link from Box Office Mojo for more domestic records that Star Wars: The Force Awakens broke.

After twelve days, Star Wars: The Force Awakens became the fastest movie to reach $1 billion dollars.

Rated PG-13 for violence. Running time: 135 Minutes.

Pancho 
All people smile in the same language.

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