Doesn’t it ever wake you up in the middle
of the night, the feeling that some day they’ll come for you and your children?
Those are the words spoken by Magneto at
the beginning of the latest X-Men: Apocalypse trailer. And if they sound
familiar, well, that’s because they are. With every new sneak peak, it’s
looking more like the newest entry in the X-Men franchise is going decidedly
old school.
This isn’t the first time Magneto/Erik
Lensherr and Professor X/Charles Xavier have discussed such an idea — the
thought that the same brutality Erik experienced during his childhood — spent
in a concentration camp — could happen again, this time to mutants.
If you remember, back in 2000, the initial
X-Men film began at that very moment when Erik loses his family and his powers
are unleashed on the Nazi gate that separates him from his mother. The scene
was then recreated in 2011 with X-Men: First Class, with the core of that movie
serving as an origin story for Magneto.
As the so-called First Class Trilogy now
wraps up with X-Men: Apocalypse, one can only assume that the conflict between
Erik and Charles will come to a head in (hopefully) a significant way.
That would be the case anyway if X-Men:
Apocalypse wasn’t trying to be an ending of one trilogy and the beginning of a
third trilogy, which looks a lot like the first one.
Confused yet?
As you can see in the trailer, X-Men:
Apocalypse will include younger versions of classic characters from the first
three X-Men films. Scott Summer aka Cyclops will be portrayed by Tye Sheridan
(Mud, The Tree of Life). Kodi Smit-McPhee (Young Ones, Slow West) another young
actor whose mostly stuck to indie movies lately will be portraying
Nightcrawler. Alexandra Shipp, who had a small role as Lil’ Kim in Straight
Outta Compton will be Storm, and Sophie Turner (One of the last surviving
Starks from Game of Thrones…sigh) is the new Jean Grey. And they’re joined by
several X-Men mainstays like Raven/Mystique, Havok, and Beast.
They’re all back for this new entry, which
is said to take place in 1983.
I love X-Men. I really do. But with these
overlapping plotlines, it’s starting to feel like we’re running in circles.
Plus, Singer has stated that he sees Apocalypse as a rebirth, with the original
lineup from the comic books coming together at the end of this film.
So, it seems that everything old in the
X-Men franchise is new again.
That is unless you count the newcomers. Olivia
Munn and Lana Condor will play the first substantial live-action portrayals of
Psyloche and Jubilee respectively. Oh yeah, and Oscar Isaac as that Apocalypse
guy.
That’s a full cast, even by Marvel
standards. Hopefully, it doesn’t become the bloated, unwieldy mess that Age of
Ultron was.
