Half in the Bag Episode 110: X-Men: Apocalypse

half in the bag once my next review oh boy that took a while to clean up that bloody dead body did a real good job washing the floor Jay there's almost no bloodstains I didn't exactly wash the floor how'd you get the blood out you licked it up is that what you're saying I didn't say that you said that well I implied it there's a difference oh okay all I know is that if somebody put a black light on this room they would be blinded by the results it would be almost apocalyptic in nature the brightness of how everything would light up from blood stains semen stains fecal matter urine bodily fluids well those last three are mostly planket but yeah mostly hey speaking of apocalyptic have you seen mother's day oh my god I have some believe that the first mutant was born thousands of years ago he was some kind of God and he's gonna rise again you are all my children and you're lost because you follow blind leaders Marvel's x-men apocalypse is another x-men movie about Professor X and Magneto not really agreeing with each other mystique being a loner misfit who does the right thing and the rest of them learning to work as a team or something Oscar Isaac is back with his greatest acting role since Poe Dameron as the titular villain apocalypse an ancient all-powerful godlike mutant apocalypse wants to do something bad not quite sure what but it's up to the x-men to stop him x-men look out it's Apocalypse Jay what did you think of Apocalypse Now oh that's a great movie Jay what did you think of x-men apocalypse why did it take them two and a half hours just to explain why Xavier is bald that's pretty much all that you get out of this movie dramatically it's an okay movie I liked some of it and I didn't like other things in it and it's kind of a it's like a constant clash of like hoidy more serious end of the world threats more dramatic superhero stuff and complete schlock sometimes that actually melds together in a way that's sort of interesting and kind of neat because it's it's it's daring in a way but then other times it's just like button heads well Jay I thought this was the best x-men film since Wolverine Origins but I know you're gonna say that first of all I loved it I loved it in a way where Bryan Singer thought he was making something dark and serious and it turned out to be the schlock that I love yeah there's there some unintentional laughs in this movie Bryan Singer is such a we make such weird decisions or it's like you could call them bold going all the way back to the first x-men movie when the first scene in your first x-men movies big comic book action movie is set in [ __ ] ash wits like that's bold and that never worked for me I always thought that was like borderline tasteless and they bring it back in this but he took the fact that he takes chances like that even if sometimes he falls on his face it's sort of interesting to me in a way where something like Civil War these Marvel movies aren't even though I like a lot I like I think Civil War is a better movie if you're just looking at the big picture like it's a better movie I was more entertained by this it was a darn good attempt at doing a live-action apocalypse kind of a goofy weird all-powerful character that's hard to do worse not much about apocalypse well I mean you know that I don't know that much either other than the the very basics and what I got from the khartoum Joe he's a very ancient all-powerful mutant nobody could stop him and he's like the biggest baddest threat I thought Oscar Isaac was really good in the role he was scary to me he was a really interesting villain I liked I liked that it wasn't guy wants revenge he was just like so I mean his his motivation or what he was trying to do I had no idea that's right he didn't work for me but the character itself like just his presence dispenses fine Foreman's presence of look like it was just like like you know he would have been more intimidating though if I knew what the [ __ ] he wanted oh yeah to cleanse the earth I guess but then what well we can get into that that that everything wrong with is going to have a field day with this one but yeah like we'll get into his motivations in a little bit I'm just talking surface level here must be a surface level visually when people started seeing pictures of him in this role they kept saying looks like Ivan ooze from the first Power Rangers movie but watching the movie he reminded me of do you remember the wishmaster your lap movie from the late nineties I remember the name he looks he looks like wishmaster would what apocalypse have worked better as a like a CG villain kind of like a an Ultron type thing because I don't know I like that there's an actor there I think yeah I think Isaac Oscar Isaac is fine in the the role my biggest problem is just yeah what the hell does he want and that's why most of the Apocalypse stuff in the movie fell flat for me together we will cleanse ya to the strongest each generation that in especially at the beginning you know we start in you know Egypt suppose the year whatever 3000 BC whatever it is but we see his the the four horsemen his disciples and they're like cult-like like they worship Him they love him they're they're devoted to him and then apocalypse shows back up in the eighties and he's just like hey you you want to be one of the horsemen and they're like okay they are just horsemen for no real good reason well the storm one made sense every storm was really well developed in us that liked her a lot I like that actress definitely better than Halle Berry oh yeah remember when Halle Berry tried to do an accent in the first movie and then by the second one they were like that was embarrassing let's not do that again at least I've chosen a side storm in this made sense and Archangel angel who turns into Archangel and pocalypse gives them special powers his character arc no pun intended made sense they say hitman Nightcrawler fighting the boxing ring and then the kind of full circle back to that later on and they fight again and he gets like he's like drunk and you know a battered and his wing is damaged and and so he can't fly anymore and he's all pissed off and angry and storm is poor and has to steal to survive so she has some motivation and of course the big motivation is Magneto which is all very well set up very emotionally done tastefully albeit a little dark yes in a way that works like I'm gonna state about Bryan Singer Taking Chances that's one that works they don't all work but that one does yeah and then of course we come to the fourth Horsemen of the Apocalypse my favorite character in the movie yeah apocalypse and storm come into the the the workshop of the guy who smuggles mutants out of somewhere and they're like hey we want powerful mutants and then like Psylocke comes out of the background and he's like yeah I guess you and [ __ ] is of course played by Olivia Munn yes as we know in Wisconsin Aaron Rodgers girlfriend who I don't think says a single [ __ ] word in the entire film I think she says something remember we're talking right does it when they first meet her I don't know this is this is how great her screen presence is we can't even remember if she says words Olivia Munn more like Olivia mum because she doesn't say anything you know she turned down being the girlfriend and Deadpool to be in this movie because she didn't want to play a role where she doesn't really do anything instead she wanted to take on a role where she doesn't really do anything yeah I don't know it's like it almost felt like who else should we have yeah I mean maybe those four characters were apocalypses horseman at one point I think a lot of characters were even Wolverine at one point or it's just like a comic book stuff is so comforting everything has happened at this point I'm assuming but it just it just felt like who haven't we had in an x-men movie yet yeah like who do people like let's put her in there you know just kind of fun with your ass up because it's time to go beast mode okay spoilers are we starting spoilers yeah okay the whole roof he was going to be spoilers alright uh in ancient Egypt apocalypse had to transfer his consciousness to Oscar Isaac for some reason I guess to have a younger he's getting audience I guess yeah he looks pretty old I guess it's what they're implying I don't think it's explicitly said but so people that don't want to live under the rule of apocalypse like little resistance movement sets a trap and buries him in rubble and then I guess a bunch of Egyptians find the top of this pyramid buried and like worship it an occult and Moira MacTaggert covert CIA operative for no reason tracks them down and played by Rose Byrne who was she from she's a neighbor's she was in bridesmaids she's been in a bunch of stuff oh the insidious movies she's the wife in the insidious movies okay but she was apparently an x-men first class and she left such an impression on us in that movie that I completely forgot she was in it so she shows up in this movie and I thought it was like her first appearance ever and then they remind you that she's in them and for no real reason she has her mind wipes which is ironic because my mind most have been wipes because I didn't remember that she was in the other movie i I noted the irony to wiped my memory too I don't remember anything I don't remember that's too long ago because there have been that was well it's not just that it's too long ago so there's such a convoluted timeline to or it's like it's hard enough to keep up with the main characters yeah because I believe they had Moira MacTaggert in the end of x-men 3 but also they introduced us to angel already in x-men 3 yes it was a completely different character in a completely same age but just in a different decade yeah and and so there's lots of other like you know two different Jubilees well it also this movie takes place ten years after the the past of Days of Future past right yes which is several years after x-men first class so by now beasts should be like in his late 30s or 40s but he's still like a young dude there's all sorts of timeline problems or these people yeah yeah mystique is like I think mystique ages very slowly that's fine yeah because Jennifer Lawrence is like they're like we're you're a hero to us yeah 20 years ago when you did that thing and she's like their same age and they put so bad but yeah it's a it's a mess it's a mess I think x-men Days of Future pants was supposed to just like wipe the timeline clean and start over but I think now they're done well then they [ __ ] that up in this one because at the end of Days of Future past I remember they circumvent the whole Wolverine getting sent to the facility with Stryker and all that or they do tests and experiments on him they circumvent that from happening but then he's just there again in this movie well it's it's a it's like an alternate timeline now he he's still he's Weapon X now right and Weapon X is Wolverine and I don't know if this is comic book or cartoon but Wolverine was part of a superhero team called Alpha Flight which was the Canadian version of like the Avengers or the x-men okay and he and he was basically like they're their killing machine and then he's like I'm leaving this group when he when he's stabbing people does he keep apologizing since they're Canadian whoa uh-huh that secret slow with Wolverine was was great the most violent this is one of most violent pg-13 movies I've seen in a while because I remember x-men 2 came out and everyone was all excited when there's the the raid on the mansion and he's going down the hallway and he's stabbing people and you're like [ __ ] yeah but it's like bloodless and here he's stabbing people and there's blood and you see blood fly against the wall it's violent in the way that him stabbing people would be and we've never seen that before in any of these movies yeah then it ends on a really bizarre note where they they'll open the door all the little teen mutants and he runs out just in his underwear and he runs out into the woods and just holds on this flat shot and it made me laugh forget everything you think you know you're not students anymore your x-men you and from the ashes of their world we'll build a better one apocalypse wakes up and then he's like wandering around modern day well in 1983 Egypt and he's like people gotta cleanse the earth I don't know what that means I guess it means just wipe everything out and then go where it says what's after that now you just relax then he just sits on a beach a little tiki drink and watch the sunset but no he's like only the strong will be my new followers so I guess he's just gonna wipe out humanity except for the strong ones and then start a new civilization something like that but he's all-powerful like he could turned people into dust or whatever do it he could manipulate matter to make things out of anything he could probably do it all himself but he needs his horseman because the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and then he also needs conveniently Charles Xavier to talk to everyone inside their heads I guess how did he know about any of those how did he know about cerebro well no he didn't he well he Xavier accidentally discovered him and then and then he's like what's this yeah what was he gonna do before he knew about that I really don't know no it was gonna have magneto [ __ ] around with the Earth's magnetic core and and trash everything which is what magneto starts to do yeah we talked about how magneto is is is he's he's just a guy he's in hiding in Poland and he has a wife and old daughter and he's like uh-huh and then something very bad happens I don't wanna spoil it and then they already in spoil yeah whatever and then he throws a temper tantrum and kills 38 guys and then pretty much trashes the entire world probably killing hundreds of thousands of people yes and then at the end Charles Xavier is like good to see you sorry Charles until our paths me together by the way I don't have my helmet on which prevents you from going into my mind which is why I wear the [ __ ] helmet Charles Xavier the thought never crosses him to incapacitate magneto forever Charles you could put him in a coma for the rest of his life then you don't have to worry about Magneto but Mike their dear friends they just don't they just don't agree their dear friend he's not gonna incapacitate him even though he's just killed hundreds of thousands of people because he was a little mad because he was a little man well mad well pretty mad we're talking about like the things that are funny cuz they're stupid in this movie can we talk about like a good scene when we're into spoilers I guess but when Magnus family gets killed and it's really well done and then cuz they all the the cops show up and they're like we don't have any metal on us we figured out who you are because you saved one guy in an accident exposing yourself what you probably shouldn't have done so it's like I like the fact that he did that that was really good the whole don't they establish that he doesn't need to like wave his arms around to control things though because that's how he gets they figure out that it's that he did something is he's like yeah I mean unless it was just very he had to react very fast maybe but either way yeah so the cops don't have any they have weapons but they don't have anything metal so he can't [ __ ] with them and then they accidentally kill his wife and kid two at once they got a twofer and then he takes his wife's necklace and just a little metal necklace and just goes and it flings around and flies through each of their next that's that's a really well done scene and that's my bride sticker so frustrating like that seems awesome and then there's something so stupid and then something awesome will happen again and psylocke shows up I have enjoyed an entire film about magneto hiding in the shadows yeah and it's little family life and being exposed as magneto and then well that's another thing to point out is that the thing I've liked about the extra movies is that they've never been too grand they're always mostly just a lot of bickering ideologies and this one that goes big epic typical summer blockbuster out which didn't work for me because we're seeing all this destruction you see it in the trailer you see bridges break apart and all that [ __ ] they don't see a single reaction from a single person there's no extras in any of that stuff so you're just seeing it like in these wide shots that are just completely you know computer-generated and then we cut to a little junkyard set and that's where everybody's fighting but you know that stuff didn't work for me at all I don't know I was okay with the things let's talk about things we liked okay I like that it didn't revolve around stupid Jennifer Lawrence yes she's in a you know quite a bit probably more than mystique would be if it wasn't Jennifer Lawrence but she's locked into these movies and she's actually blue naked mystique for two minutes maybe of the whole movie and then the rest time she looks like Jennifer Lawrence yeah but yeah the movie the plot doesn't revolve around her the way they were kind of starting to go with some of the other ones yeah from the trailers and stuff when at the the movie ends with her starting to train the young x-men in the Danger Room yeah and she's like you're x-men and you know now's your time to fight and there or whatever and I was like oh no she's gonna be like leading them and we have to work as a team like x-men three I think did that with Hugh Jackman and Wolverine where it's like they have to look up to somebody now that Pop's is dead it's gonna be you or Wolverine no Wolverine would just leave yeah and go [ __ ] all y'all I'm gonna be a leader now because I'm Hugh Jackman me and Halle Berry were the big names for Lawrence is the biggest name in this so she's gonna be the leader and really she wasn't and and what was shocking to me was that the kid who played Cyclops and Cyclops started to kind of like take hold as a leader he was running around with Jean Grey and Nightcrawler and and he sort of was like kind of starting to take charge and and I liked the fact that they had Cyclops in this I like the kid who played him he did really good and he was starting to learn to use his powers and it was great i-i've always liked Cyclops eye he's always sucked in the movies unfortunately because they they they push him to the side because he's not as interesting as a Wolverine that is tormented or whatever and he's not a big star like Halle Berry was at the time yes storm is boring but it's Halle Berry so Halle Berry's is the big name and gray well at the end when they're trying to kill apocalypse you know a magneto turns sides and he's like now I mister throwing all the metal in the world at you and then and then Cyclops is just blasting him with its optic blast like the heavy hitters are pounding on apocalypse and then Professor X is getting his mind and then and then big ending which really is throwing continuity out the window well three didn't happen anymore right in this timeline so it doesn't matter yes so so for those of you who haven't seen x-men three the elder Jean Grey played by femke Jensen has the the power of the Phoenix within her and it's and Professor Xavier works 24/7 to keep it in check in her brain because if it comes out it's a [ __ ] end of the world she can't control it and it's really dangerous in this movie a 13 year old girl unleashes the power of the Phoenix on apocalypse melts him melts his face off the most powerful mutant ever to exist melts him and then goes all right of a buddy let's go home I guess I'm okay yeah and in the comic books I think the the Phoenix was a space a space entity that that was able to control Jean Grey because she was powerful enough to contain it I think okay from what I recall so there's three different versions of the Dark Phoenix this one it's now been established that this girl is just a girl from Brooklyn she looks like the girl from Brooklyn no it's not okay this is a girl that's on Game of Thrones came of what that Game of Thrones that show with Peter Dinklage and all the dicks and boobs everywhere oh is that the show where you see Peters Dinklage I know you got a little thing for him oh I get it I know you got a little thing for his little thing but yes so now they've established that the x-men have at their disposal the Phoenix at their will yeah and there's never gonna be any conflict in any future movies so oh no we've got another hill and AG problem solve maybe they'll build on it and say she has to learn to contain it or some crap I don't know until she doesn't have to anymore the the the funniest part was at the very end when Xavier and Magneto were saying their goodbyes to each other and Magneto's like Charles don't you worry for the day when they will come for you doesn't it ever wake you up in the middle of the night the feeling that someday they'll come for you and your children almost like what who all the please you just killed apocalypse Xavier had the right response he's like I pity anyone who comes knocking on the door of this school yeah yeah yeah go ahead try the mutant Registration Act we got the Dark Phoenix go ahead we killed apocalypse yeah the most indestructible mutant ever we're here to serve you a warrant professor yeah I loved it I loved watching them fight apocalypse at the end it was so bad that's great it was very comic book II yes and that that's that's why it worked except for the couple minutes where I think I nodded off because it was boring I think movies too long I may have been in a you know like a fever dream but I believe when Xavier goes into apocalypse his mind and there in the dream world of Xavier mentioned I think he says you're in my house now [ __ ] and he smacks it doesn't he say something I think welcome to my house and I start playing that song by slow ride oh yeah that was a great thing do they accident have to pull on all their powers without really doing the whole stupid we have to work as a team thing they don't have that speech or they just also doing is just everybody using their powers they don't know what they're doing yeah they just have to stop this guy because he's really [ __ ] dangerous and he's gonna transfer his consciousness into Xavier because the only power that he doesn't possess is getting into every humans mind on earth and and I think he wanted to do that I don't know why if it was my cleanse the earth well if it was if it was to like mind control everyone to like like walk into the ocean and kill themselves or to like like worship Him like I'm just going to control everyone's mind will make them worship me like a god that would have been like understandable or yeah simple yeah no you seem to just want to kill everybody yeah let's go to war forget everything you think you know and when Cyclops got loose pocalypse melded him into a wall and then he's like I can't take classes off and it looked like everyone was losing and then Xavier gets the upper hand beast breaks him out of the wall and he rips his glasses off he's him and Magneto or teaming up and they're fighting them it was so bad awesome Quicksilver comes out of nowhere and starts kicking apocalypses ass yeah so awesome and I'm like Keith this isn't gonna last for too long and then apocalypse is like I figured you out yeah breaks his leg now apocalypse really would have just went dusts chair but that's Evan Evan Peters well he's the fan favorite because he's great in these movies I've been Peters is is great and everything he's in my health is he benin well he's in all the seasons of American Horror Story that's right he spent in lots of stuff he was actually Michael Scott's nephew on the office one of his very early performances remember when Michael Scott publicly spanks him oh that was him yeah he's like all over the place American Horror Story hotel the Lady Gaga he plays the ghost of the 1930 serial killer okay it's a it's a it's a tape on HH Holmes Jerry yeah you know who that is oh yeah he does this great like look yeah I'm HH Holmes and might I suggest that when you murder him you do so off the property and to be damned awkward to keep running into him for all eternity there's the fun sequence which also totally doesn't match anything else in the movie that's what I want to mention that's the the ultimate clash of tones is the Quicksilver scene in a way that is so bizarre that it worked for me because this is you've seen the movie or a time when of course the scene where he comes to save all the all the people at the mansion because the mansion is in mid explosion the whole place is being leveled this would be the dramatic low point for our heroes in story structure this is their low point but they turn it into this wacky fun sequence set to the Eurythmics where he's goofing around and saving everybody and it's so bizarre oh yeah the tone is so [ __ ] up when why again was Moira MacTaggert in the whole movie I don't know Moira MacTaggert more like Moira MacTaggert just pulled home today just full of them poems I know Brian singer was excited to work with James McAvoy why do you say that well he originally thought his last name was James McAvoy and and he's like hey we got a lot in common yet oh oh oh sorry it was nice to see Michael Fassbender who we will if you've seen the movie shame he's known as Michael Fassbender over overall I enjoyed watching it and it and it achieved such level of schlock when I saw it had a 48% Rotten Tomatoes score I either thought I'm gonna love this or it's gonna be a miserable Man of Steel esque experience i I was worried that it would follow more on the Man of Steel side because you see the trailer you see the the cities being torn apart No yeah but there and the idea that it was like a villain of the week type movie which the x-men movies have up until this point basically avoided so I was worried about those things and those are the things that are the weakest parts of the movie for me yeah basically everything with apocalypse fell flat for me except for Oscar eyes it's actual performance but like the best of the x-men movies there's good character stuff I like Nightcrawler a lot in this I thought he was good he's running around in a Michael Jackson thriller jacket for half the movie that was fun the the jab at x-men 3 was was good in a theme that exists solely to have a jab at x-men 3 it's it's like one shot you see the billboard that says Return of the Jedi fans down there talking about the series and they're like well we could all agree the third one's always the worst and then they look right at the camera and then they superimpose an image of Brett Ratner yeah I thought that was a little too much but well they pan by and Brett Ratner's just like sleeping on the street with like baseball that would have been great actually he does not need to be in the movie at all it doesn't it doesn't serve any sort of narrative purpose other than to take a jab at x-men 3 well yeah there's Bryan Singer showing off I'm sure he he's got the like there now you know thing going on after well that's what makes this movie so unintentionally funny thinks he's making a serious movie yeah that that's what makes it work is is much like x-men origins Wolverine you know you you try and and I like that's why I enjoyed this more than civil war because war was just like I like the this the fight sequence on the airport I thought that was fun comic books Locke but then the rest of it was just like everyone hates each other wants to punch each other I thought the dramatic elements like I said before Civil War I think is a much better movie but this was more entertaining because of how silly and weird at god I like James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender together of course their chemistry is great I wish they were in the movie more they're in it for I don't know a couple minutes and that's kind of it that's always been the strongest stuff in any of these movies whether it's them or whether it's those two old guys oh yeah Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart is that their names and they have anything else they've put in some things offhand I can't recall WOD okay some kind of like bigger sci-fi series or series of films Oh sci-fi uh Patrick Stewart was in life force yes Mario is possessed by the spirit of a space vampire what lady and then he kissed a dude yes that's what okay so Mike would you recommend an x-men Apocalypto I would absolutely recommend it I loved it so much and Bryan Singer hit a home run accidentally for the most part least for me only and I was gonna say yeah you're talking about it from a very specific point of view if you were to look at this from like a general audience that wants to see like a good action comic-book movie like it's harder to recommend this I think well I don't know you get your money's worth it's two and a half hours long it's too long and that's my biggest problem but it doesn't feel like it feels like all the characters were given their their appropriate amount of time I think I think it didn't feel two and a half hours long and in the beginning it did a little because they were really taking their time and they're really setting things up I think if it was cut shorter it would have felt more rushed and overt about like who's this character that was jumbled in there but it was because it took so long to do everything all the characters that are in this movie didn't feel like jammed in or shoved in there yeah yeah everybody's given the right amount of time and I thought there was maybe a little too much time spent on exposition of Apocalypse yes because that scene in the office with Rose Byrne it was normally a good actress and I thought she was terrible in this movie but she's explaining the whole apocalypse thing and it just kind of keeps going well though the beginning to when they're doing the ceremony yeah that went on a little too long but what about you yes anything about this I as far as if I would recommend it or not um I would kind of kind of with an asterisk einde of like what you're saying where it's flock and you kinda have to go in if you want to see a solid follow up today's of Future Passed because that was a solid movie good movie this isn't really that this is it sort of devolves into Sherlock so people that want to see a good movie might be disappointed I want to see a good solid series x-men movie might be disappointed it falls on its face just enough to look at entertaining that should be that should be on the poster like 20% 20% fall down ratio and that's that's that's what I want and Oscar Isaac is great in it I feel bad for him getting those giant checks now he's caught up in the Hollywood machine it's such a Hollywood X machinima I was seeing that Oscar Isaac Oscar Isaac gave such great performances and many many films but now he's Ashlock clowns oh dammit oh my god what a performance well Oscar Isaac ain't PO no more oh he's making those Hollywood that was a classic a pardon was bound to do one eventually I guess that was real good they took six years that was real good I'm real proud of you well thank you for watching you

Channel: RedLetterMedia

Views: 1,715,453

Keywords: X-Men, Apocalypse, Review, Red Letter Media, Half in the Bag

Id: XjNSCLQGzLA

Length: 37min 2sec (2222 seconds)

Published: Mon May 30 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/zachrywd]

And they're right, can't wait! Would also be cool to see a collaboration with CinemaSins and RedLetterMedia.

Edit: comment made at 5:19 in case the link didn't work.