X-Men: Apocalypse - Brand New Trailer Unleashes Apocalypse
You might be forgiven for letting the advent of a new X-Men movie pass you by. There’s been the small matter of Deadpool’s triumphant performance at the box office; not to mention the gargantuan tussle between Superman and Batman on the horizon – so to remind you that the apocalypse is coming, Fox has released the latest, doom-laden trailer for X-Men: Apocalypse.
Firstly, after we get a few aerial shots of Charles Xavier’s (James McAvoy) mansion, we get a brief but significant exchange between him and Magneto (Michael Fassbender). Does that dialogue sound familiar? It’s taken line for line from an exchange between Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen incarnations of those characters from the first X-Men film.
Skipping over the cyclical nature of that choice of line, we then get brief glimpses of Kurt Wagner (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and Scott Summers (Tye Sheridan) in some sort of underground tunnel system – possibly the same tunnels glimpsed in an earlier trailer where our heroes attempt to save people trapped in a bunker. Then there’s a brief glimpse of Magneto wandering around the basement of the mansion – which if not for the dissolution of continuity in Days of Future Past, might have set alarm bells ringing (perhaps the part about him helping to build Cerebro survived the great cull?)
There are also a lot of shots of a very 80’s Professor X which seems to suggest that, we’re getting a lot of footage from the beginning of the film – perhaps events will put him out of commission for the latter half of the movie. We then get our closest look at Apocalypse yet; first a flash of ancient Egypt and a mysterious ritual with two hooded people stood in an ominous looking doorway – as Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne) tells Charles: “Some believe that the first mutant was born thousands of years ago. He was some kind of god, and he’s going to rise again,” which we can all agree, will make for a smashing film (note as well at this point, Charles is wearing the same outfit as earlier clips in the trailer).
Deviating from the comic book, we also see just how Oscar Isaac becomes Apocalypse which appears to be via some form of transference rather than being born to look like Ivan Ooze. “You are all my children and you’re lost because you follow blind leaders,” he intones. “No more false gods.” He then presents Magneto with his helmet as Moira tells of his four followers, followed by our first glimpse of Psylocke (Olivia Munn) and Angel (Ben Hardy) and then, joined by Storm (Alexandra Shipp) who rounds out the four horsemen of…well Apocalypse.
“Together we will cleanse the Earth for the strongest,” says Apocalypse, right before he does just that with what looks like the ability to turn everything in his path into sand. After unleashing his wave of destruction upon what we assume is Cairo, we get brief snippets of some rather pensive looking X-Men then, an apparent missile launch, which due to the shakiness of Professor X’s voice, seems to be a vision from Cerebro.
Before we get a lot of footage from the other trailers, we also get a beautiful shot of the absolute destruction of what we believe is the school at the heart of a lot of the misery wrought on the faces of the X-Men – here though, there appears to be no school children present. Speaking to Empire, Bryan Singer confirms that it forms part of another Quicksilver slow motion sequence contained within a library, and it’s a particularly ‘bittersweet’ section of the film. There’s also the first shot of hanger containing the Blackbird.
While we’ve seen the ‘Charles over-powered by a giant Apocalypse’ scene before but the part where Charles is slammed against a pillar is new – perhaps this is the reason he’s largely absent from footage from later in the film. With the rest of the trailer very much playing up the fact that this isn’t just the end of three films but six X-Men films, it’s an exciting rush towards the end of an era for the Bryan Singer’s mutant movies.
