Magneto's Critique of X-Men: Apocalypse

Everyone's a critic.

And there's nobody I know who better suits that quote than our good old grumpy key-chain friend Magneto. At the start of June, Magneto actually got the chance to get out of the house for once when She hooked him onto her purse and took him out to the movies. Nessa actually got to go to, for some reason. I guess it helps to be an ornament. They came back with She two hours later, with Magneto harrumphing about the film. This is my recording of two differing opinions on it, released about a month later to protect those of you readers who haven't see X-Men: Apocalypse from spoilers. If you still haven't seen it, I suggest you look away and pick another post of mine to read. But if you have seen it or just don't really care whether you see it or not, please read on! It's a pretty interesting story.

***

Elsa(Me): Okay, I've got the laptop up and going. Ready to share your points of view on the new X-Men movie?

Nessarose: Sure! I'm still waiting for my Doll's Life File, by the way.

Elsa: Don't worry, I'll get to you soon enough. Let's just do this one first before any of you forget what happened in the film.

Magneto: *scoffing* I doubt that.

Elsa: Magneto, since your character is in the movie, why don't you begin?

Magneto: Fine. This movie is ninth, I guess, in the X-Men series. In releasing order, it goes X-Men, X2: X-Men United, The Last Stand, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, First Class, The Wolverine, Days of Future Past, Deadpool, and Apocalypse.  Both Deadpool and Apocalypse were released this year in 2016. However, this movie is a sequel to Days of Future Past, and a prequel to the ones set in present day.

Elsa: Wow! That sure is a lot of movies!

Magneto: Yeah, 20th Century Fox just doesn't know where to stop.

Nessa: I don't know why you're being so mean to your own movie. I enjoyed it well enough. And I'm not even Marvel! Why didn't you like it, Magneto?

Magneto: Just because I'm in the movie doesn't mean I'm going to like it. Not all dolls are like their real-life or fictional counterparts. That's just how it is.

Nessa: Geez, somebody's crabby today.

Magneto: *sighs* The acting was admittedly mostly good, though. I'm played by Michael Fassbender this time around.

Nessa: *whispers to me* Who, by the way, is kinda hot.

Elsa: Nessa, you think all Marvel men are hot.

Nessa: *twists her cape in her hands* So what? They are.

Elsa: Could we see a picture of this Michael Fassbender?

Nessa: Sure. Got some up on She's phone.

Elsa: You're right, Nessa, he is kinda cute... but is that weird to say with an actual Magneto in the room?

Magneto: What is he, performing interpretive dance?

Nessa: *swiping on the phone screen* Now check out this one.

Magneto: And now he's singing to go along with the dancing.

Nessa: No, that's when he was blowing up Auschwitz with magnets, remember?

Elsa: What?!

Nessa: This one's a better look at his full costume.

Magneto: And now's he's a cover model.

Elsa: He blew up a concentration camp with magnets!?

Nessa: Oh, yeah. Perhaps we should actually explain the movie, Magneto.

Magneto: If we must.

Nessa: Okay, so the first scene takes place in ancient Egypt, where almost everyone on the street is bowing and worshiping a man in a bird hat, being flocked by other men in hats of other animals like cats or crocodiles.

Elsa: Honestly, you've already lost me at Auschwitz.

Magneto: That doesn't even come until later!

Nessa: Everyone is kneeling to this one guy being carried on a throne-thingy, except for these two people who clearly have something secret planned. Once the cosplaying weirdos enter a pyramid, these two men give a special signal by clamping their hands on their staffs, and then they knock the pillars holding a bunch of heavy blocks down, sending them crashing into the pyramid.

Magneto: Perhaps we shouldn't be going so slow, Nessa. We have a lot of movie to cover. Two hours and twenty-seven minutes of it.

Nessa: *pouts* But I didn't even get to tell her what the bird-people were doing inside of the pyramid!

Magneto: Whatever, tell her that. But we don't have all day.

Nessa: Okay, the bird-people take off their silly hats to reveal like, monsters or something. I don't know what's wrong with them, they just look really weird.

Magneto: I would say that they were mutants, but I thought En Sabah Nur was supposed to be the first one. That's Apocalypse's name in Egyptian, En Sabah Nur. It translates to "The Morning Light" which is a reference to the fact that he is the first mutant on the Earth.

Nessa: Wow, look that all up yourself?

Magneto: *folds his arms* I might've read a bit on Wikipedia, yeah, but so what? The other "mutants" gather around the largest bird-person, and underneath the mask is a wrinkled blue pickle face. They take an innocent Egyptian boy down on a stone table and the previous En Sabah Nur on another, and they soul-swap with gold ink flowing between them. But the pyramid starts falling because of the heavy block plan outside, so most of the other mutants die in the process. The remaining woman is able to save the new En Sabah Nur with a power shield until she is crushed by a stone. The end.

Nessa: No, that's just the first five or ten minutes!

Elsa: *holding head in hands* I'm already overwhelmed. Frozen was so much easier for me to follow.

Magneto: Years later, we've got way too many different scenes with different characters going on all at once, in foreign places with way too many big white texts of where they are on screen. 

Nessa: Yeah, I have to agree on that. Lots of things going on at the same time.

Magneto: All you really have to take away is this. Angel and Nightcrawler are battling in a German dogfighting arena until Mystique, played by Jennifer Lawrence, saves Nightcrawler and takes him to a man with obvious contacts called Caliban so they can get to Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, which is where all the little mutants go to train and grow.

Elsa: All I heard was Jennifer Lawrence. I really like her! I've heard good things.

Magneto: Of course you're a J-Law fan Elsa. I'm really not surprised.

Elsa: Am I supposed to be complimented or offended, or...???

Nessa: You're supposed to look at these pictures of the characters. This is Angel.

Elsa: Okay. Yeah, he looks pretty Biblical to me.

Nessa: And those curls! He can fly, too. Now this is Nightcrawler.

Elsa: He looks like demon.

Nessa: He is not! Nightcrawler is a sweetie! He can teleport and his name is Kurt Wagner, which is actually shockingly normal for... whatever he is.

Elsa: Okay? *Nessa swipes on the screen again* Now she looks familiar.

Nessa: Oh, that's Jennifer Lawrence, remember? She just looks like herself in real life most of the movie.

Magneto: Because that makes sense, right?

Nessa: Oh, hush. And this is her when she's the shape-shifting Mystique. 

Elsa: Very... blue?

Nessa: Just wait until you meet Beast. If we remember to show you a picture of him. *spoiler alert, she forgot*

Magneto: X-Men has quite the obsession with blue things.

Elsa: *chuckling* Is that why you opted for red clothing most of the time? Just to be rebellious?

Magneto: You bet I did.

Nessa: Meanwhile, we cut to Poland where a man named Erik Lensherr is going home from his blue-collar job as a whatever involves a lot of heavy metals. And I don't mean the music genre, but like, boilers and sparks and safety goggles and stuff. He has a beautiful house in the woods, a loving wife and a little daughter who sees Erik the hero in her life.

Magneto: So of course we know that they're both going to die.

Nessa: *slapping him across the arm* Hey! Spoilers much?

Elsa: *sighing* No, it's okay, Nessa. Things like that happen in animated Disney movies, too. You have to establish absolute perfection and happiness in order for it to get crushed so the main character has a reason to fight for it all back.

Magneto: See? I like that quote. Can I use it sometime to demonstrate the hardships of life to the naive?

Elsa: *weirded out* Sure... go right ahead.

Nessa: Okay, so you already know they die. Good.

Elsa: How?

Nessa: Police come to Erik's house because he used his magnetic powers to save a guy from being crushed by a bucket or whatever at his work site, and one of them accidentally shoot both his wife and child in the back when his daughter, Nina, summons birds to attack the police force.

Magneto: Because that makes sense. Nina isn't even Magneto's daughter's name! It's Polaris. Says so in the comics.

Elsa: Ooh, Magneto, you had a child? I didn't know this. Who's the mother?
Magneto: *blushing* I said in the comics, I didn't mean me myself. I don't have any family to speak of.

Nessa: That's not true. You have us, remember? We're all family here, regardless of blood relations.

Magneto: *not one for emotions* And then Erik kills them by taking Nina's necklace and whipping them through all of their necks.

Elsa: Really? Geezes... wow.

Nessa: *shrugs* There wasn't a whole lot of blood. I didn't even have to cover my eyes.

Magneto: We need to tell Elsa about Paul Bettany eyes.

Nessa: Right! Paul Bettany eyes is what She called Professor Xavier in the movie. Based on what she was telling her friend, Paul Bettany plays the Vision guy from Avengers: Age of Ultron. Which I haven't seen. Nor do I know who Vision is. But his eyes must be pretty dreamy.

Elsa: Picture?

Nessa: Coming right up. I'll try not to get one of when they had to shave his head.

Elsa: Again, what?

Magneto: All in good time.

Elsa: Yep, those are certainly some eyes... do they usually have that x-thing around them? And what does this have to do with anything?
Nessa: Not, what, who. Professor X takes his assistant teacher Hank to Cerebro-
Elsa: Who is Cerebro?
Nessa: Not who, what.
Elsa: You're very confusing.
Nessa: -And they look up his previous love interest with his mind.
Magneto: *sighs and facepalms* You couldn't be any more cryptic with this, could you?
Nessa: Moira MacTaggert. Look, I found a jif!



Magneto: That's her name, yeah. Then we see her taking pictures of an Egyptian cult with a viewfinder or something.
Nessa: Did we mention this movie takes place in the 1980's?
Elsa: No... but I'll write that down. *continues to type*
Magneto: The important thing is that the cult is able to go to the old site of the pyramid from the beginning of the movie and resurrect En Sabah Nur, who has apparently been protected in a sleeping state under a rug gallery this whole time.
Elsa: Of course.
Magneto: The cult dies when En Sabah Nur escapes, again by rocks falling on them, but Moira is able to run out of the basement in time.
Nessa: I don't fault her for running. Basements are scary.
Magneto: So now Apocalypse is on the loose and ready for revenge.
Elsa: What is he avenging? *wink wink*
Nessa: *waves it away* I don't know. Look, it doesn't matter, okay? He's just angry at false gods. *shows me a pic of Apocalypse*



Elsa: Ew, he's freaky. His mouth looks like spider mandibles. Magneto? Do you have any explanation for this false god thing?
Magneto: He's just angry because now the weak rule the world instead of the strong, as he was promised. He wakes up in 1980's Egypt and finds a local pickpocket named Ororo and is able to recruit her as a horseman of the apocalypse by upgrading her weather powers. Her alias is Storm.
Nessa: *pulls up another picture, this time of Ororo* She had black hair before Apocalypse turned it white.



Elsa: Very fitting.
Magneto: Basically En Sabah Nur's goal after that is to get more mutants on his side, make them stronger, and fight back for his control over the world.
Nessa: He and Storm go to see Caliban where they meet Psylocke. Ugh, Psylocke. I didn't like her. Her character is really boring and so are her powers, so I'm not even going to show you her picture.
Magneto: You skipped out on Jean Grey and Scott Summers, too.
Nessa: That's not the point. All she can do is create a magenta sword or whip out of her arm. That's really about it. She has nice hair, though. Psylocke then takes them to see Angel, whose wings are severely injured after loosing the dogfight to Nightcrawler. Apocalypse convinces, well, forces, Angel to join after he gives him a sweet new pair of wings with bulletproof metal feathers. Some of the feathers can even become weapons, shooting out at his opponents like arrows. *shows me a pic of new and improved Angel*



Magneto: And then my character comes in! Yay...
Elsa: Wait, I thought you liked Michael Fassbender as you.
Magneto: I do, but he's so wishy-washy. He's almost always hurt or upset or angry about something, which causes him to test his friendship with Professor X and constantly change sides.
Elsa: Sounds like someone I know, hmm?
Magneto: Ugh. Anyway, Apocalypse and the three horsemen are able to stop Erik from murdering his coworkers with a bunch of flickering, swaying lights. They go through a portal to Auschwitz-
Elsa: Ah! This is the part that got me earlier. But someone has portal powers now? I thought that was Nightcrawler.
Nessa: No, Kurt can teleport. Apocalypse can do basically anything, including portal creation, just with a light purple color scheme. Because we all know light purple is the evilest hue of them all... duh duh duh!
Elsa: Light purple is She's favorite color.
Magneto: Huh. How quaint. But they take Erik to Auschwitz, where he first discovered that he had the power to control magnets and metals. Then he lets it go,...
Elsa: HA.
Magneto: ...Tears the concentration camp apart with magnetic forcefields, and then joins En Sabah Nur's team. Then he gets, as Nessa calls it, his costume.
Nessa: What, is it not? It is totally a costume.
Magneto: *sighs for the hundredth time* Now that Apocalypse has his team, Professor X finds out about him through Cerebro whenever he sends all the nuclear weapons into space.
Nessa: Odd. I don't remember that part.
Magneto: The Stan Lee cameo?
Nessa: Oh yeah! That was funny.
Magneto: *grumbling* It wasn't supposed to be. It was dramatic. Terrifying. Breathtaking. Worrisome.
Nessa: But then the reflection of the nuclear missiles shooting up in the air in his sunglasses? Priceless comedy.
Magneto: Sure, whatever. Professor X starts to assemble a team of his own. We have assistant teacher Hank as Beast, Raven as Mystique, Jean Grey as Phoenix, Kurt as Nightcrawler, Moira MacTaggert as... herself, Alex Summers as Havoc, and his brother Scott Summers as Cyclops, a new recruit to the special school.
Nessa: Aren't you forgetting someone?
Magneto: Umm...
Nessa: Only the best scene in the movie ever?
Magneto and Nessa in unison: Peter Maximoff!
Magneto: Even though his name was clearly supposed to be Pietro!
Nessa: I heard it was Pietro in the second Avengers movie.
Magneto: But I will actually have to agree with Nessa this time around. His scene is the best in the movie. Set to Eurhythmic's "Sweet Dreams", Peter Maximoff runs around the school saving everybody except Alex from a fiery explosion caused by Apocalypse and the gang.
Nessa: *on She's phone* Hey look! I found the song!
*We sit and listen to the "Sweet Dreams" song for a while before continuing the review*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeMFqkcPYcg

Nessa: But yeah Alex dies. Oopsy.
Magneto: *angrily* Such casual disregard to human life, Peter.
Nessa: Yeah, but so what? All he could do was... set himself on fire or something. And chest lasers? I don't know. His brother Scott lives and grieves the death of a family member as he cries through his laser eyes.
Elsa: Who were the parents to give both their kids laser abilities?
Magneto: Who knows? Mutants fight and a few smaller characters die. Mutants get captured and mutants escape. Including Wolverine, who is sadly without a single line of dialogue. However, he does get the chance to slaughter all of the bad guys with his adamantium claws.
Nessa: That scene had a lot of blood.
Magneto: *groans* Can we just wrap this thing up?
Nessa: Sure, Mr. Cranky-Pants.
Magneto: The climax of the movie occurs when En Sabah Nur gets the brilliant idea to transfer his consciousness into Professor X's body, because Xavier can see into the mind of everyone on earth, humans or mutants alike. With all of that power over everyone's minds, Apocalypse would be able to take the world over quite easily. Team X-Men obviously tries to resist this, which throws both teams into the battle.
Nessa: Ooh! Can I say this part? Erik as Magneto, not you, of course, tries to destroy the city by bringing all of the metal under the Earth's surface upwards. Basically he's trying to wipe all sources of civilization since the Bronze age. He helps Apocalypse build a new pyramid at the center, where they take Professor X for the soul-swapping session.
Magneto: Right... though it's not a swap. A swap would imply they switch bodies. But no. En Sabah Nur just wants to put his consciousness into Charles' brain. Without his consent.
Nessa: So this guy is evil.
Elsa: I kind of caught up on that already.
Magneto: Whatever. We already know that his team loses and team X-Men wins.
Nessa: Storm and Magneto decide to join in, and Angel is left to brood in his gross old barn as Psylocke flares her nostrils and flees the scene. Moira gets her memory restored but Peter never tells his father that he's his son. And Alex is still dead. Still, the school is repaired from the explosion and everyone else gets a happy ending.
Elsa: I'm still left in the dark.
Magneto: Ness... we forgot to tell her about the Moira and Peter thing.
Nessa: Oh, but that's not a big deal, is it?
Magneto: We haven't even mentioned the memory wipe or daddy issues, but we showed her three different pictures of Michael Fassbender.
Nessa: Yeah, so? That's far more important than any old useless subplot.
Magneto: *getting heated up* Fine. I'll tell her then, you...
Elsa: *holds up hand to stop them* Guys, seriously? The last time we got this defensive about a Marvel movie, or any movie for that matter, was the Civil War we had in She's bedroom. You almost died, Magneto. What do you think will happen now?
Nessa: *testy* It's okay... I'm sure he didn't mean it. Somehow in the previous movie Professor X erased all of Moira's memory of him to protect her. But at the end of this movie, he gave back her memory so they could be in a relationship again. Peter was on a quest to find his father, who left him as a child, and explain to him that Peter was his son. His father was Magneto. So there you have it.
Elsa: And a son, too?
Magneto: *growls or something* Only in the comics, and only in the movie.
Nessa: *Puts her elbow up on Magneto's shoulder* Yep, that was all there really is to say about the movie. I actually had a great time, it's too bad you couldn't see it with us, because our review isn't going to do it justice.
Magneto: Only the strong will survive? No one even died!
Nessa: Except for Alex. And Apocalypse. Anyways, I give this movie an eight out of ten.
Elsa: And you, Magneto?
Magneto: It's a six out of ten. Average action film.
Elsa: Cool. Well, that's it! Thanks, guys. I'm going to put this on my blog as soon as I get everything down.
Nessa: And then can we do my doll's life file?
Elsa: Maybe. We'll see.
The End.



Though I had learned a lot about Marvel that day (though I'm not really sure if I'm ever going to retain that knowledge) I think Disney movies are more my style. Of course I'm going to have to hear about this movie for a month or so more, but I don't think I'll really mind too much. In the meantime, I heard there's a trailer coming up for a new Disney princess Moana! Of course, I've known about this release and have been anticipating it since, well, my finding date, really. Maybe somehow I can convince She to take me to the movie theaters without breaking the Code of Dolls in November. Anybody got a good plan for me?

 Hi from Nessa and Magneto,

Queen Elsa