The latest installment of the X-Men movie franchise, X-Men: Apocalypse, finally brings viewers an adaptation that is relatively successful at bringing the unique characteristics of the comics to life.

The story of the X-Men, a group of people blessed or cursed with genetic mutations that give them superpowers, has captivated comic book fans for 53 years.

Throughout those five decades, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s story has evolved to become more than just a fictional tale of superheroes. It has become a mythology of the modern era.

X-Men is not a typical superhero story. While the superheroes in other stories are all loved and cherished by the people around them. The X-Men are a group of super-powered human beings who defend a world that fears and hates them.

The fact that members of the X-Men are called “muties” by the public helps them serve as a perfect metaphor for the heavily racist American society during the 1960s and 1970s. The term “muties” in X-Men could be said to have a comparable insulting meaning to the N-word.

When Hollywood decided to adapt X-Men into a big budget feature film for the first time in 2000, avid readers of X-Men comics had an expectation that magnificent special effects would not undermine what the X-Men story was all about.

The movie adaptation, along with its subsequent sequels, however, mostly missed the mark when it came to pleasing those who grew up reading the comics.

They somehow managed to please general viewers, who came to watch just another superhero movie with explosions and epic fight scenes, but for those who were looking to get that same profound feelings as they got from the comics, previous X-Men film adaptations have all felt a bit bland.

However, this year, X-Men: Apocalypse, directed by Brian Singer, the director in charge of all the X-Men movie adaptations since the first installment 16 years ago, has finally managed to showcase a delicate take on some of the classic storylines from the comics.

The story in the latest installment takes place several years after the events of X-Men: Days of the Future Past (2014), which served as a reboot of the universe in which the films are set.

En Sabah Nur (Oscar Isaac), a mutant from ancient times in Egypt, comes back from the dead with a desire to destroy all forms of human life because he is enraged by the betrayal of his human followers thousands of years prior.

During those thousands of years, and En Sabah Nur’s absence, mythology around a powerful being who once ruled the world had spread among ancient civilizations. This mythology, in the film, is what gave birth to monotheistic religions including Judaism and Christianity, and En Sabah Nur is positioned as the God those religions follow.

This God is now feels spited and angry. He recruits four mutants — Storm (Alexandra Shipp), Angel (Ben Hardy), Psylocke (Olivia Munn) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) — to destroy the whole of humanity that has long mistreated them.

The only ones who can stop En Sabah Nur – now branding himself as Apocalypse – from destroying humanity is another group of mutants. They are Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy), the telepathic mutant who founded the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters (for young mutants), and his high school students — Scott Summers (Tye Sheridan), Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) and Hank McCoy, aka Beast (Nicholas Hoult). The students possess super powers but have no idea at all of how to control their gifts.

Xavier and his students also receive assistance from Moira McTaggert (Rose Byrne), a CIA operative who discovers the existence of En Sabah Nur; Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence); teleporting German mutant Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee); and lightning-fast Quicksilver (Evan Peters), who provides the best comical action sequences in the movie.

En Sabah Nur in this film represents the apocalypse almost literally, killing hundreds of millions of people on his journey of destruction.

With the help of Magneto, who can control electromagnetism, En Sabah Nur shakes the earth from its very core and causes massive earthquakes on a global scale. By infiltrating Xavier’s mind, he manages to gain control of the minds of every individual on earth and he can simply make them do what he wants them to do.

The destruction brought by En Sabah Nur and his four mutant disciples in a way represents the story from the Bible’s book of Revelations, in which God sends his four horsemen of the apocalypse to wipe the earth clean from sinners.

The screenplay and special effects departments have done a great job depicting the massive destruction. The scenes look realistic, detailed and daunting on a massive scale. However, this is not the point that makes the movie unique.

There are many superhero movies that feature realistic, massive-scale special effects but not many of them can take an audience that grew up reading superhero comics down memory lane to relive their childhood fascination with the classic stories.

X-Men: Apocalypse features bits of legendary X-Men story arc taken from its comics that were published during the 1980s and 1990s. The X-Men costumes and uniforms in this movie, for example, features a retro-design that is similar to what readers saw in the old comics.

The film also contains a lot of easter eggs taken from the X-Men comic universe that will definitely please loyal comic readers.

A surprise appearance by an important character from the X-Men, who shows up during a scene that reprises one of the most important chapters in Marvel comic history, will also definitely make all the nerds and geeks who read the classic comics jump up and down with excitement.

The ability to bring back this nostalgic nuance somewhat compensates for the lack of strong characterization in the film. With so many big name mutants featured, the two-and-a-half-hour running time seems to have been a bit short for providing a deeper interpretation of each character.

There is always hope that in the future, the audience — both the casual movie goers and the avid X-Men comic readers — will have the chance to know and understand the main characters even more.

The finale and the after-credits scene provides hints that Singer might adapt more of the X-Men’s legendary storylines, such as the Dark Phoenix saga and the mutant massacre, to the silver screen.
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X-Men: Apocalypse
(20th Century Fox, 144 minutes)

Directed by Bryan Singer
Starring: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Oscar Isaac, Nicholas Hoult