While everyone’s going crazy over Captain America: Civil War (which is getting good reviews all across the board; we’ll have ours pretty soon, so stay tuned) 20th Century Fox put out their newest trailer for that other big Marvel property this summer. It was a relatively quiet release for the new teaser for X-Men: Apocalypse, and it’s a full two minutes of glorious nerdgasms.
We’re here to break it down for you once again, and if you haven’t seen it yet, here it is:
You good? Good. Let’s begin!
We begin with a conversation at the newly-reopened Xavier’s School For Gifted Youngsters. You know, the dilapidated old building Wolverine found Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Hank McCoy (Nicholas Hoult) back in Days of Future Past? Thanks to the success of their efforts in that movie, Charles has reopened the school for… you know… gifted young mutants. As you can see, there’s a new first class. The second first class, if you will.
Charles is telling Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) that “things are better. The world is better.”
Raven isn’t buying it, though. “Just because there’s not a war,” she says, “doesn’t mean there’s peace. He’s coming.” Her statement could be taken to mean the general racism and distrust non-mutants have for muties, but the last part implies that they’re still watching out—not for Apocalypse, because they don’t know him yet, but for Erik (Michael Fassbender). Magneto. He’s still out there, and he still ain’t happy with Charles and the gang.
Also, it’s pretty interesting that Raven isn’t blue to begin with here.
Production companies’ logos follow!
We are now taken to what looks like an ancient Egyptian temple. We know where this is going.
“Some call him Apocalypse,” says Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne) in a voiceover. We’re seeing a bunch of priests attempt what looks like a resurrection of En Sabah Nur. “He was some kind of… god.” This ritual they’re doing turns the human into what he’s known to look like.
“For thousands of years,” she continues, “he was amassing mutants to take their powers.”
HE CAN KILL PEOPLE WITH SAND.
“He always had four followers.” And with that, we’re treated to the first looks at these four followers, which everyone all knows eventually end up being part of the good guy X-Men.
(Young, non-Halle Berry) Storm (Alexandra Shipp).
Angel (Ben Hardy).
Psylocke (Olivia Munn).
And, of course, Magneto himself.
“Like the Four Horsemen?” someone else says.
Yes. Exactly like the Four Horsemen. EXACTLY.
“Erik, don’t join them,” Charles pleads.
“Whatever you think you saw in me,” Erik replies, “I buried it with my family.”
“Together,” Apocalypse says, “we will cleanse the Earth. Everything they built will fall!” SHIT IS GOING CRAZY. WE DON’T KNOW HOW HE’S DOING IT, BUT HE’S WRECKING EVERYTHING.
“And from the ashes of their world, we’ll build a better one!”
If you want to depict the whole world going to hell, here’s a shot of the SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE BEING DESTROYED.
“I’ve never felt power like this before,” says Charles as he either sees the destruction or just surveys Apocalypse’s might using Cerebro.
Charles and Apocalypse fight one-on-one. Apocalypse somehow manages to grow in size and beats Charles, taking him away somewhere.
Here’s our first shot of Havok (Lucas Till). The Summers brothers are going to play a pretty distinct role here, but obviously the more popular Summers brother gets more screen time. You’ll see him later.
“Raven,” says Hank, “the world needs the X-Men.” So there seems to be some conflict over the leadership and straight up existence of the X-Men after Charles is taken away. Also, why isn’t Hank blue right now?
“I’m not a hero,” says Raven.
“Students look up to you,” answers Hank.
There you go—Raven will be leading the kids while daddy’s gone. Now she finally turns blue. “If I’m going to teach your kids something,” she says, “I’m going to teach them how to fight.”
We now get our first looks at the young versions of the other prominent X-Men. Here’s Sophie Turner’s Jean Grey, with a really weird-looking forehead.
Aaand here’s Havok’s brother Scott (Tye Sheridan). You know him better as Cyclops, as though the red stunnas didn’t give that away already.
Heeere’s Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee), who can teleport. (Wonder if they’ll say that he can teleport because he’s really passing through Hell.)
Nightcrawler being Raven’s son is hinted at in this scene, with Kurt seemingly not being able to believe who he’s seeing. “You’re her,” he tells Mystique.
We also see our first look at Quicksilver (Evan Peters) in this movie. Pietro/Peter has finally deduced that Magneto is his daddy, and he tells Raven.
“Magneto?” he says. “He’s my father.”
“What?”
“My mom, they did-“
“-no, I know.”
SUPERHERO LANDING!
“Not all of us can control our powers,” says Scott.
“Then don’t,” says Raven. #YOLO!
SO HERE’S YOUR FIRST OPTIC BLAST!
Storm’s lightning and Cyclops’s optic blast meet in the middle, resulting in this awesome scene.
Apocalypse makes all the world’s nukes launch. It’s like First Class all over again. “Apocalypse means to destroy this world,” says Charles. No shit, Sherlock.
“It’s all of us against a god,” someone says. No shit again.
A quick montage of the Four Horsemen, ending with Psylocke’s distinctive purple energy blades.
It’s her versus Beast in the fight, and she just misses stabbing Hank’s foot, giving him this strange smile. Could this mean that she’s not all mind-controlled by Apocalypse?
A quick montage of scenes, and we see that mutant-hating military douche William Stryker is back.
Aaaaand our first shot of Jubilee! *cue X-Men cartoon theme*
“Forget everything you think you know,” says Raven to the kids. “None of that matters.”
Here’s what looks like a refurbished Blackbird.
MORE OPTIC BLASTS. PEOPLE LOVE OPTIC BLASTS.
“You’re not students anymore.”
“I’ll take everything from them,” says Broody Erik.
“You’re X-Men,” says Raven. Here’s Havok giving out his energy blasts in what seems to be an attack. Could this be the scene of his demise, as Cyclops takes over his rightful role as One of the Faces of the X-Men?
JEAN’S TELEKENESIS!
SUPERCUT OF PEOPLE SCREAMING AND UNLEASHING THEIR POWERS!
TITLE CARD.
But wait, there’s more.
Raven and Quicksilver find Cyclops and Jean in this bunker, with a trail of bodies on the floor.
“Well, you’ve been busy,” says Raven.
“We had a… little help,” says Scott.
FWING! Money shot. Because what’s an X-Men movie without Wolverine? Now I’m interested to see how he’s going to be introduced to the X-Men; if you remember, as of the past setting in Days of Future Past he still hasn’t joined Team Xavier. We have a guess, though, and it lies in his shiny new adamantium claws—it looks like this is him breaking out of wherever they’re holding him for the Weapon X program that gave him his adamantium skeleton.
The rebooted X-Men franchise is honestly the best Marvel thing Fox has done in recent memory, and while DoFP isn’t as celebrated as First Class, Apocalypse looks like it’s going to be a whole lot of fanboy-directed fun. Introducing new but totally familiar characters (read: all the characters casual fans have been looking for) is the next logical step in the cinematic X-Men story, and we can’t wait to see how the new mantle-wearers handle the classic roles they’ve been given.
X-Men: Apocalypse hits theaters on May 27.
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