Quicksilver's Big-Time Heroics in 'X-Men: Apocalypse': New Video Shows How They Shot It
Critical opinion is divided about X-Men: Apocalypse, the latest film in the long-running X-Men franchise and Memorial Day weekend’s box-office champ, but there’s one thing pretty much everyone agrees on: Quicksilver literally runs away with the movie. Again. In Apocalypse’s centerpiece set-piece, the speedster played by Evan Peters uses his faster-than-time powers to rescue all of the students at Charles Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters from imminent danger. (SPOILER ALERT! Well, almost all. Cyclops’s brother, Havok, dies in the conflagration that he inadvertently caused while trying to stop Oscar Isaac’s titular despot.) It’s a spectacular stunt that gives the Team Cap vs. Team Iron Man airport battle in Captain America: Civil War a run for its money as summer’s most crowd-pleasing action sequence so far. As for how director Bryan Singer and his effects crew pulled it off, we now have a new behind-the-scenes video with some answers (watch it above).
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As X-fans remember, Peters previously proved his scene-stealing mettle in Singer’s 2014 blockbuster, X-Men: Days of Future Past, wreaking havoc in the Pentagon kitchen and allowing his mutant allies to spring Magneto from his temporary prison. That sequence, scored to Jim Croce’s “Time in a Bottle,” illustrates one of the chief strengths of the four Singer-directed X-movies: the action sequences are driven by the characters’ skills and personalities. Speaking with the Los Angeles Times recently, the director described his approach: “So as long as I stay true to a good and interesting story that’s character-based, then all of the spectacle [is] not the focus. I think that’s the difference between this and just going to see a bunch of fireworks.”
That said, Apocalypse has its share of visual fireworks, including a bigger showcase for Peters, which the actor refers to as “The Extraction.” Apocalypse takes place a decade after DoFP’s ‘70s heyday, and in place of Croce’s croon, we hear the oh-so-‘80s synth sounds of the Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams.” While the song choice roots this scene in a new era, the mutant’s M.O. remains the same: racing against a slowed-down clock, he rearranges bodies and objects in space, so when time catches up to him, they’ll be out of danger.
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In real life, a high-tech, high-speed Phantom camera, which can photograph real-time action at 3000 frames per second, essentially “freezing” the image, helped visualize Quicksilver’s on-screen heroics. “To put that into perspective, something that happens in just the blink of an eye turns into about 15 seconds,” stuntman Charles William Shults explains in the making-of video. The special effects crew also moved the camera at speeds that ranged up to 90 miles per hour in order to match the timing of Quicksilver’s actions. (For his part, Peters appears to have been rigged up to wires to facilitate his character’s lightning-fast movements.)
Having successfully pulled off “The Extraction,” what will Quicksilver do for an encore in the next X-Men adventure? That’s a question Singer might not have to wrestle with; he’s dropped hints his next project will be to direct a new version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, the classic Jules Verne adventure. In the run-up to Apocalypse, reports suggested that the film would be his farewell to the franchise he helped launch 16 years ago. And Singer reiterated his desire “to do something really different” in his L.A. Times interview, although he did hedge his bets somewhat. “I’ve spent so many years in this universe and I love this cast and the characters so much, I just don’t see myself abandoning them forever,” he says. “Perhaps as a consultant, as a producer, even as a director, I could see myself returning in the future.”
If and when he does return, here’s hoping he finds time for another Quicksilver set-piece.
Evan Peters tells us how it feels to be the last Quicksilver standing:
