Oscar Isaac won’t badmouth X-Men: Apocalypse, though he does wish it were a “better film”
It helps that he has a new superhero thing going on
Aux News Oscar Isaac
For a guy who often seems like a Serious Actor, Oscar Isaac is really a fixture of not only genre films but major blockbuster franchise films, having dipped his toe in Star Wars, X-Men, and now the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Moon Knight (which is a TV show, not a film, but what is a Disney+ TV show if not a two-hour film with four or six additional hours tacked on needlessly?). Speaking of X-Men, though, Isaac recently sat down with The New York Times to talk about Moon Knight, and he touched on the difficult experience he had working on X-Men: Apocalypse in 2016.
The New York Times asked him if he has “disowned” that film, in which he played the eponymous mega-villain mutant from the comics, but Isaac has mostly nice things to say about the experience. “I don’t disown it,” he said, since he’s still happy with the reasons he had for taking the job in the first place—which are getting to play Apocalypse, who he loved when he read X-Men comics as a kid, and getting to work with James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, and Jennifer Lawrence—but he does wish it had been a “better film” and that they “would have taken care of the character a little better.”
He has said in the past that filming the movie was “excruciating,” since the prosthetics and costume involved in playing Apocalypse were such an ordeal, and he told The New York Times that part of the issue was that he couldn’t even move or look at the actors he was so excited to work with. But still, he doesn’t seem to be too bent out of shape about it (his career didn’t seem to be hurt by it much, which probably makes things easier to swallow anyway).
Isaac also briefly touched on Florida’s so-called “don’t say gay” bill again, saying he’s “glad” that Disney took the right stand eventually and that it’s “astounding to watch a vindictive politician try to own the libs,” and he also noted that, “if Disney is going to own so much of the entertainment industry,” then it has to be willing to make a stand on issues like that. Which, yeah, good point!
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Apocalypse is nowhere near as good as it could have been, but I do think it gets unfairly shit on. It’s still nowhere near as bad as Last Stand or Origins, much less utter dreck like Catwoman or Elektra.
I’m a firm believer that most of the prequels are the bones of good movies that just needed a better writer or a second writer. Dark Phoenix is an absolute mess, but Fassbender and McAvoy are also doing what they do best and get some amazing lines of dialogue. They just needed it to be in a better paced movie. First Class and DoFP are both the best of the bunch, but even they make some definite choices around pacing that is baffling to me.I also totally get the decision by Jennifer Lawrence to only appear in Dark Phoenix if that makeup would be less intensive, but in both that instance and Apocalypse for Oscar Isaac, I’m kind of at a loss for why they weren’t just mo-capped.
Most likely because of tradition and/or realism, since they have always done that stuff via makeup with Mystique and Beast previously.
Sure, but when the alternative is this: Because your actress said she would *only*return if the makeup wouldn’t take more than 2-hours and you were dragged for the villain’s look in Apocalypse, you probably need to reassess.
I’m still not convinced the blue part is even make-up. I suspect they just CGed a blue overlay on J. Law’s face.
There are set photos of her with the make up on and honestly the blue looked better so if anything I wonder if they over corrected:
The sad thing is that the alternative shouldn’t be that. There are cosplayers that pull off better makeup in less time. I believe the makeup from prior movies made her sick though.
With that image in particular, it looks like they did way too much digital editing though.
I’ll take as much Days of Future Past as possible meself, even the Rogue Cut which adds, y’know, Rogue! and she gets to connect with Logan again, awwwww. Also has this great bit when Peter’s kid sister ask Logan “Who are you?” *super melodramatic push in on Logan for no reason* “I’m The Wolverine. Where’s your brother” Was just re-watching Wandavision again, I absolutely love it when Peter shows up, it’s so great. I’m legit sad they Ralph Bohner’d him ultimately, if they wanted to make a recasting joke then they should have cast someone else to play him. Don’t cast a guy who did a perfect Quicksilver in the Foxverse even moreso than the in-house MCU Quicksilver (and he wasn’t bad either but Peters Quicksilver is just amazing).
First Class should have been good but it’s just so generic and predictable that I find it boring. I’m gonna say DoFP is probably the best one.
It’s better than Moon Knight
Being a letdown after Days of Future Past didn’t help. (And it would have mattered less if it had been a better movie overall, but I think going back to behaving like a prequel to the original films after DoFP blew the future wide open was part of the letdown.)
Yeah what the hell was with Apocalpyse causing Storm’s white hair and Xavier’s baldness? Did the Prime Universe X-Men also fight Apocalypse? And it all went down the same exact way (but without Mystique)?Not every hairstyle (or lack thereof) needs an explanation! (Still a sorta-decent movie though imo)
AoA is very much like Dark Knight Rises, in that yes it’s a little overstuffed and messy at times, but it’s also wildly rewatchable. Definitelty gets a bad rap.
Apocalypse ain’t great but has a lot of positives. The action scenes are well done. The Quicksilver sequence is just great.
Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix are both awesome. I don’t know what the stick up everybody’s ass was
Aside from the action set pieces, the actual story for both films isn’t very good. The dialogue is laughable in a bad way and the movies barely kept to continuity. I mean, Dark Phoenix seemed to totally forget that Jean channeled the Phoenix at the end of Apocalypse. Part of me wished Dark Phoenix had Magneto kill Jean at the halfway point with the rest of the film focusing on him forming a new Brotherhood in the wake of Mystique’s death and the X-men’s ineptitude.
All to avoid hearing Jean’s cringe-tastic dialogue.
Yeah I remember walking out of that movie really enjoying it. I could tell there were issues and it could have been a lot better, but its always been treated like its such a horrible freaking movie and I know its not.
“what is a Disney+ TV show if not a two-hour film with four or six additional hours tacked on needlessly?”What is M*A*S*H* if not a 2 hour movie stretched out to 100-some hours for no reason?Admit it Sam, you are one of the last remaining AV Club writers because nobody else will hire you.
Hah! Fortunately, Barsanti doesn’t seem to truck with the comments much, so you probably won’t get banished for that spot-on critique.
The M*A*S*H finale was actually longer than the movie.
Math checks out.
Honestly, I know there is some overwhelming desire to add snarkiness to every article on here to show each writer’s cool cred, but be judicious or simply have some categories, like “NEWSWIRE”(!), be simply what they are titles – news and move on.
The problem is, that’s been The AV Club’s brand for a while. Remove that tone from Newswire articles and you basically get Collider or Filmcrush or Flickgeek (maybe some of those are made up? Who knows). You know, those porridge-thin sites that just regurgitate the PR release, maybe with a layer of bland “sounds awesome! What do you think? Sound off in the comments!” on top. And of course, no one sounding off in the comments. That’ll happen here, too, if it goes that way.
Huh? This IS one of the sites that blandly regurgitates press releases and sprinkles in an unfunny semi-joke
Now, but it wasn’t always.
It’s also a bizarre criticism for shows like Wandavision and Hawkeye, which were very much episodic TV shows.
*eyes Eternals* Man that would’ve been a great Disney+ show with 2-3 additional hours tacked on necessarily. Imagine if all the characters got actual development time.
I think Hawkeye could’ve been reworked as a movie if they cut some of the tracksuit mafia shenanigans but it definitely worked best as a TV show.
Black Widow might’ve been a great D+ show too. At the very least, we could’ve gotten more Yelena, Red Guardian, Taskmaster and the pig.
Good Lord, this sentence:“For a guy who often seems like a Serious Actor, Oscar Isaac is really a fixture of not only genre films but major blockbuster franchise films, having dipped his toe in Star Wars, X-Men, and now the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Moon Knight (which is a TV show, not a film, but what is a Disney+ TV show if not a two-hour film with four or six additional hours tacked on needlessly?).”It’s 73 fucking words long! And we get completely sidetracked for a while as Barsanti notes that Moon Knight isn’t a TV show, so it doesn’t really count, but then concludes it does count. Why not use the word “roles,” instead of “films,” so that you don’t have to make the distinction at all?And for all of that, the substantive point is stupid. Is there anyone who thinks of Oscar Isaac as two prestige-y for genre roles (see how easy it was) when he’s been in Moon Knight, Dune, and an animated Addams Family sequel, all in the last year? His next role is Solid Snake in Metal Gear Solid!
I think somebody needs an application to become a writer for AV Club!
Sam gets paid more for longer, pointlessly snarky sentences.
If somebody paid me per word I’d
This sentence (along with countless others) are perfect evidence that Sam is a worthless writer/journalist (if you could even give him that much credit). I kick myself everytime I click on a article without first checking whether or not he wrote it, because most of the time, I regret it.
Truly fuckin abysmal writing, Jesus
but what is a Disney+ TV show if not a two-hour film with four or six additional hours tacked on needlessly?Personally, I could use a couple MORE hours of Moon Knight as they are cramming a lot of stuff into the episodes they have right now. Could probably say the same about the other MCU shows.Now, Book of Boba Fett could’ve been condensed into a 90 minute movie once they excised all the Mando stuff from it. You’d get no argument from me there.
Somehow, I’m the first mutant
The New York Times / The New York Times —> pick one
Apocalypse sucked and it was not remotely Isaac’s fault. In another life, he could’ve been amazing in the role.And like Dark Phoenix, I feel like Apocalypse would’ve benefited from a better-established universe and more build-up. But then, I’m partial to both X-Men 90s and X-Men: Evolution, each of which took different – but fantastic – approaches to the character. (90s: he shows up sporadically throughout the seasons as an insane megalomaniac behind a number of nefarious plans; Evolution: slow-build over the seasons to a dramatic reawakening, he never speaks, he’s just overwhelmingly powerful, and is all the more menacing for it.)
Ill say it thenIt’s the movie version of the I’m the juggernaut bitch comment
Apocalypse has a lot of issues but the makeup was part of it. In hindsight and with seeing what other moves did, Apocalypse should probably have been a full CGI character. I’m not sure any makeup effect that was even remotely close to comic accurate would have ever not looked like a Power Rangers villain.
CGI would have let Apocalypse be impossibly bulky and tall — the film’s design for him would suit that, but in among the shots that make him look imposing, there are too many that show he’s just a fairly regular height.
The Apocalypse design was not only a huge whiff aesthetically, but it was about 10 years out of date. Iron Man and General Zod had already been walking around their sets in motion capture suits, adding their bulky mech suits in post, years before Apocalypse was filmed. I’m not sure why they decided burying Isaacs under 50 lbs of garbage was the way to go. Especially since the makeup did the opposite of making the villain physically imposing – it dwarfed him.
“I’m not sure why they decided burying Isaacs under 50 lbs of garbage was the way to go.”
I’d bet real money that the answer is quite simple: it was cheaper.
My favorite part of those last two movies is how they shut up all the fanboys who’d been whining for years that the original team would have done the Dark Phoenix story right.
Cool! I wish it was a better film too!Stars, they’re just like us…
He’s very diplomatic because that movie was atrocious and seemed like it tricked everyone involved. But then he probably has a lot to say about the last Star Wars movie too
I think when Oscar Isaac said he’d only do more Star Wars if he needed another house or words to that effect says enough for now.
They needed to give Apocalypse the Thanos treatment in that movie, just an enormous CGI rendering. Then they needed to tighten up the plot. There was no good reason for the Weapon X sidequest.
Except to get the obligatory Wolverine cameo.
Right, no good reason.
Apocalypse had a couple of great things in it, the Sweet Dreams scene and Cyclops going full Cyclops when they took his Visor off and let him use his full power which the original movies never let him do.And while it was clearly not good it was no where near the levels of shit that1. The Last Stand2. Wolverine Origins 3. Dark PhoenixThose 3 were the worst X-Men movies by a mile.
Yeah I came out of that movie really enjoying it. I cant say the same for the Last Stand or Dark Phoenix though. Sure, it wasnt a great movie, but it at least was far more enjoyable than the other terrible X-Men movies
Same, I didn’t hate it at all and was looking forward to the next one. It was a step down from 1st Class and Days of Future past but no way was any movie they made going to be better than part 2.
I truly don’t know how someone can write this many articles for this long and not get even a little bit better at it. Sam, you’ve proven that 10,000 hours does not a master make.
I thought it was fine. But I thought Dark Phoenix was fine too, and I have been reliably told that it isn’t, so what do I know?
Oh hey, Great Value Sean O’Neal.
The New York Times asked him if he has “disowned” that film
That couldn’t have been a real question. What kind of asshole asks an actor that? Is this something that is expected of every movie that doesn’t meet expectations?
I agree that it’s a bad question to ask actors, but Bob Hoskins was never afraid to let people know that he thought the Mario movie was shit, and I sort of love that. Also that Michael Caine quote about Jaws 4. Interviewers probably dream of someone shitting on a bad movie they made in a clever way.
Maybe in a couple of years we can get him to disown Moon Knight. I certainly would.