The thing that throws me off is that I think of the original X-Men trilogy as being set in the present day, even though the first one came out 15 years ago.
If you look at the ages of Halle Berry and Famke Janssen, who were playing a little younger than their ages in these movies, the timeline just about lines up for Storm and Jean Gray to be in their late teens in 1983. Alan Cumming as Nightcrawler, too, for that matter. The bigger problem is X-Men: The Last Stand, the continuity of which doesn't line up at all with the prequel trilogy.
Apocalypse looked riddiculous in the early promotional photos, but his look really works for me in the trailer and the posters. A real showcase for the importance of lighting and color grading.
And man, that last shot of bald Xavier in the wheelchair at the end... He looked more like the Professor X of the comics come to life than we've ever seen before. In Patrick Stewart, they had an actor who already looked remarkably like the character he was playing. But here, they've made the actor look exactly like the character:
Best not to think too hard about the continuity in these Fox X-Men movies. Although, with Days of Future Past a new timeline was created in 1973, so everything after that can happen differently than the original timeline. For example, I'm pretty sure Apocalypse awaking and doing what he does never happened in the original timeline, it's a new event for this new timeline.
The character of Angel seeming to be the same age in The Last Stand and in Apocalypse is either something they are just choosing to ignore or something that they internally explain away saying that a "different (but similar) version" of a person happened to be born at a different time in the new timeline.
But as I said, while X1, X2, FC, and DoFP (and The Wolverine) were all good to really good movies, having a clean, solid continuity is definitely not a strong point with these films. But I think the alternate timeline thing adds enough of a fudge factor in there that we can let most of that stuff go.
Mostly my feeling, too, with this and the Independence Day sequel trailer. Even the Coca-Cola/Hulk ad had the Hulk destroying buildings and public property over a tiny can of Coke. Marvel needs to find a new theme.
That looks pretty good. I hope it doesn't get lost in the crowd of Superhero movies being released this year. It's following on the heels of Civil War. I hope Cyclops gets a bigger role this time out and I'd like to see more Quicksilver too.
I'm really getting burnt out on all of the disaster porn superhero movies in recent years, as all of the franchise grapple to have the most epic scale.
One thing that continues to impress me is how well Matthew Vaughn cast X-Men: First Class, and how much mileage Singer's follow ups continue to get from those actors. Lawrence, Fassbender, McAvoy -- that's a hell of a leading trio for the fifth installment of a series. And when you look at the new additions this time around -- Oscar Isaac, Sophie Turner, Olivia Munn -- you wonder how much they were attracted to the project because of the stellar existing cast.
They need to make one of these where the heroes lose, the Earth explodes, and a stunned audience is led quietly and awkwardly to the end credits. Then the end credits explode.
Yes, I'm way past being tired of the disaster porn. Honestly, it was old upon the second viewing of Independence Day twenty years ago. (I won't be seeing the new ID4.)