Thoughts on the X-Men: Apocalypse Trailer

X-Men: Apocalypse will be in theaters two weeks from tomorrow, as Memorial Day weekend kicks off the summer movie-going season. It follows X-Men: Days of Future Past, but the alliances and leadership has changed. This time, it’s Raven (Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence) leading a group of young X-Men “with the help of Professor X (James McAvoy)… to stop Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac) and the Four Horseman.”

You can barely see the people in the special effects!

The reviews so far… haven’t been good. Since they don’t hold press screenings in my neck of the woods, I just have the promotional material to go on. After watching the latest trailer, shown below, I had some thoughts.

First, as a viewer older enough to think “Halle Barry” and “James Marsden” when I hear “Storm” (Alexandra Shipp) and “Cyclops” (Tye Sheridan), I’m not surprised I wasn’t blown-away excited by this. But I was pleased to see Quicksilver (Evan Peters) again, and Olivia Munn as Psylocke is surprisingly good.

Overall, my take is “Too much fighting, not enough fun”, but I know that there are people with different opinions on what superhero movies need. I prefer the smaller-scale efforts. We’ve had too many “we must save the entire planet!” stories lately, although it’s nice to see Mystique rally the troops. There are way too many shots of people screaming, too.

The trailer did one thing very well: I’d forgotten about Wolverine, paying attention to the other characters, until that last shot.

So, will I see it? Probably. Will I rush out first day of release, as I did with Captain America: Civil War? Probably not. But I will try to go before things get spoiled for me, always a risk in these super-chatty days when everyone’s got an opinion to share.