I caught a couple of movies over the long Memorial Day weekend. I may have more to say about them later, but for now here are some quick observations...
I thought X-Men: Apocalypse was a lot of fun, offering a good mix of drama with a generous amount of superhero action. The movie is actually pretty rich and lavish, production-wise, which was nice to see, but fortunately it also never strays far from being fun and fast-moving. The X-Men franchise is controlled by Fox, not Marvel Studios (home of Iron Man, The Avengers, etc.), so it was nice to see that someone else can make a decent film using the Marvel characters (though Fox had less success with the Fantastic Four). But the X-men films (the main ones and their various individual-character spin-offs) have generally had more hits than misses. I thought this was one of the better ones.
Alice Through the Looking Glass was okay, considering I really am not much for storybook characters (this movie was my wife's pick). Keeping me interested was some imaginative time-travel stuff, as this time Alice utilizes a cool-looking flying time machine to sail through time (which is neatly envisioned as a churning ocean) to save the Mad Hatter's family from a tragedy. This is another lavish, beautiful production, with tons of interesting details that entertain the eye but don't bog down the story. You'll eat this one up if you have a stronger affinity for Alice, Humpty Dumpty, many talking animals, and similar characters than I do. But, honestly, even I thought the movie was pretty good. Thinking back now, I especially liked Sacha Baron Cohen's character; he plays some kind of Master-of-time type guy, and he's a lot of fun.
Oh, I saw both of these movies in 3D, and thought the third dimension served these fanciful stories quite well. I'd recommend splurging on the 3D if you decide to see either or both of these films.
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