X-Men: Apocalypse Trailer # 2 - Review and Reaction

The second trailer for the X-Men: Apocalypse is here.

After helming X-Men: Days of Future Past, Bryan Singer returns to the director's chair. In addition to the  regulars (James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult), we have a few newcomers: Oscar Isaac as the titular antagonist En Sabah Nur/Apocalypse, Tye Sheridan as  Scott Summers/Cyclops, Sophie Turner as Jean Grey, Alexandra Shipp as Ororo Munroe/Storm, Ben Hardy as Warren Worthington III/Angel, Lana Condor as Jubilation Lee/Jubilee, Olivia Munn as Betsy Braddock/Psylocke, Kodi Smit-McPhee as Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler and Tómas Lemarquis as Caliban.

Check out the trailer below:

The trailer seems to take a leaf out of the recent trailers/TV spots for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and is very action packed. The special effects in this movie definitely look better than what we have been seeing in the Zack Snyder directed one.

Unfortunately, the comparisons do not end there. Just as the trailers have been mostly soulless and joyless, this trailer also gives off similar vibes. Plus, it does not help that Jennifer Lawrence's Mystique is given way too much screen-time.

This obviously comes at the expense of other more important characters like Prof X and Magneto. The only one to survive the Jennifer Lawrence onslaught and come out relatively unscathed is Oscar Isaac's Apocalypse.

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The trailer starts off with Erik and Charles repeating a famous exchange between Ian McKellen's Magneto and Patrick Stewart's Prof X in the chess scene in the climax of the 1999 X-Men movie.

The focus then shifts to Apocalypse. We briefly see his origins and cut to the present where he is recruiting his four horsemen: Storm, Magneto, Archangel and Psylocke. These scenes are adequate.

The trailer goes downhill from here as the YA theme kicks in with the song and Jennifer Lawrence in full Katniss Everdeen mode spouting motivational speeches like: “Let's go to war”, “You are not students any more. You are X-Men!”

The action scenes look adequate, but somehow the trailer failed to capture my imagination. The movie looks to have been made by a committee that has provided a checklist to be followed: A movie with YA credentials (to capitalize on the Twilight, Hunger Games, The Divergent series fans). This is obvious in the way presenting Jennifer Lawrence in full-on Katniss Everdeen avatar and a cast full of young faces.




All this has been achieved at the cost of delivering a proper X-Men movie. When stalwart characters like Charles Xavier and Magneto are given a couple of token lines (at the beginning) only to give way to a Mystique who leads the X-Men now, it is clear that the studio's priorities lie elsewhere: making profits at the expense of making an actual X-Men movie.

Bryan Singer has been a reliable director on his X-Men movies and other ones like The Usual Suspects and Valkyrie. His X-Men movies are my favorites in the comic book movie genre, right along with Christopher Nolan's Batman movies, Sam Raimi's Spiderman Trilogy and Richard Donner's Superman.

As a fan of most of the X-Men movies, I hope this one too will be good. But my instincts indicate otherwise. Looks like Bryan Singer has bent to the studio system and has delivered a mass product rather than one borne out of his passion and imagination.

Hopefully, one of my favorite mutants shown above would at least get some money shots showcasing his awesome powers, if not proper character development. Cyclops is the best!

Click here to read all my posts related to Marvel Comics.

Image Sources: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Marvel Entertainment, TSG Entertainment, Bad Hat Harry Productions, Donners' Company, Mel's Cite du Cinema

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The Flash Season 2 Episode 15 "King Shark" - Recap and Review

After returning from Earth-2, Dr Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanagh) advises Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) and Cisco Ramon (Carlos Valdes) not to discuss with Caitlin Snow (Danielle Panabaker) or Iris West (Candice Patton) or Detective Joe West (Jesse L. Martin) about what happened to their doppelgangers.

Torn between his desire to be honest with the Wests and his guilt over the murder of Jay Garrick (Teddy Sears) at the hands of Zoom (voiced by Tony Todd), Barry yearns for a meta-human to vent out his anger upon.

Barry's wishes come true when King Shark (voiced by David Hayter) escapes from his holding cell at the A.R.G.U.S. Lyla Michaels (Audrey Marie Anderson) is  the new head of A.R.G.U.S. and witnesses this escape along with her husband, John Diggle (David Ramsey).

Diggle warns Barry about the impending danger. Barry learns from Dr Wells that on Earth-2, King Shark was actually Shay Lamden, a marine biologist before he mutated into the half human-half shark monster. Dr Wells advises Cisco and Caitlin to approach Dr. Tanya Lamden (Haley Beauchamp), wife of the deceased doppelganger on our Earth. Tanya also happens to be studying sharks.

A secondary plot involves Barry trying to make amends with Wally West (Keiynan Lonsdale). Wally is insecure about his place in the family vis-a-vis the well-established Barry, whom both Joe and Iris dote on.

After the superior two parter episode set around Earth-2, it was a tough task for any episode to maintain the status quo. To the credit of all the talents involved, they succeed for the most part.

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King Shark has been executed very well. Though we know that the meta human is a walking talking group of computer generated pixels, still the villain was enjoyable. His encounters with the Flash were entertaining. It is interesting that a TV show made at a fraction of the budget that Warner Bros. and Zack Snyder, can give us such engrossing villains like Reverse Flash, Zoom and King Shark.

This only goes to shows what great difference people with passion for the source material can make. It is quite obvious that both Warner Bros. and Zack Snyder have absolutely no respect or passion for the comic books on which they are basing their DC Extended Universe upon. The special effects for Man of Steel and the upcoming Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice pale in comparison. I highly doubt that Doomsday and/or whatever other villains we will be seeing in the upcoming movie can have 1% of the impact that Zoom or King Shark have been able to produce.

Cisco acting afraid around Caitlin and her retaliatory prank was hilarious. Cisco again proved his geek credentials by wearing a Godzilla themed T-Shirt this time around.

In the previous episode, Cisco made a reference to the crime thriller movie: Heat. This one contains a ton of references to (drumroll please).... Jaws:

1. The aquarium employee referring to King Shark as “Bruce”.

2. Cisco's response to the fact that King Shark is coming to Central City to seek revenge against The Flash: “We are gonna need a bigger Flash”.

3. Cisco's comment: “Cue the Jaws Soundtrack”.

4. Cisco and Caitlin arguing who should be “Quint”

5. Cisco's comment: “Just when you thought it was go back in the suburb, King Shark shows up at your house”.

6. Wally West explicitly refers to “Jaws” after the King Shark attack.

Joe West also refers to “Sharknado” attack.

The final and crucial aspect was the revelation regarding Zoom. In the final scene, we see that Zoom is in fact Jay Garrick himself. Now it makes sense that the masked hostage was trying to communicate the name “JAY” to Barry on Earth-2.

This is an interesting plot development and promises more interesting episodes in the future.

Recommended watch to fans of The Flash/DC Comics.

Click here to read all my posts related to DC Comics.

Image Sources: Berlanti Productions, DC Entertainment, Warner Bros. Television, The CW Television Network

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