It's become quite clear that director Bryan Singer is, and has always been, the man to direct X-Men movies. With "X2" and "X-Men: Days of Future Past" he not only made the two best X-Men movies, but he also created two of the very best films of the genre. To say that, safe for his 1995 Oscar-winner "The Usual Suspects", those two movies are the crowning jewels of his, mostly hit and miss career, would be an understatement. When he has not directed an X-Men movie the 50 year-old writer-director has opted to direct more critically reviled fare such as "Valkyrie", "Apt Pupil", "Superman Returns" and, yikes, "Jack the Giant Slayer".
For him to just keep on making more X-Men films would be a no-brainer as far as career decisions go and that's just what he's doing. He also does seem to know the characters like the back of his hand. However, trouble has been brewing recently as fans have been complaining about Singer's upcoming "X-Men: Apocalypse", but more specifically the titular villain. Fans have been questioning the inauthentic look of Apocalypse and the unintended resemblance to Ivan Ooze, the villain of "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie". If you're making a Marvel franchise film the last thing you want to be connected to is Haim Saban and Shuki Levy's live action animated TV series.
To make matters worse once the "X-Men: Apocalypse" trailer dropped nationwide a backlash occurred concerning Apocalypse's size, but more importantly his voice. Oscar Isaac, a formidable young actor, lent his vocal talents for the sound of Apocalypse, but X-Men purists know that Apocalypse does not sound at all like Isaac. In fact his voice is inhuman, godly, almost monstrous.
Singer has had enough and has come out to clarify his side of the story.“What I'm doing is something very unique. It hasn't been done before. We're rerecording his entire performance because the suit's creaky and makes all kinds of noise, you can't really use any of it anyway. But I want his performance. So he's being recorded in ADR using a standard Sennheiser microphone, but also with a bass mic to his right cheek and a bass drum mic to his left cheek. These two microphones have the ability to pull vocal range out of his voice that the human ear cannot hear. And I can take that vocal range that I've now recorded, and I can pull it and use it to augment his voice -- and that with a little digital magic can create a voice that's both completely governed by his performance but is not natural. “It ebbs and flows and moves through the movie, and changes, so he doesn't just have one single voice. He speaks with different voices depending on different moments in the film. So it's really kind of cool. It's the first time I've ever had the tools to sculpt a performance in post-production, that was already given to me on set and chosen in the cutting room."
Alright, X-Men fans is that good enough for you? Isaac is turning into one of the great actors of his generation so it is hard to really complain about his presence in any film. However, with this and "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" it seems like he's decided to take a dip into the mainstream for a change. Unlike "Star Wars", the jury is still out on whether or not the decision to be in Singer's latest X-Men will turn out positively for Isaac, There are people still complaining about his Apocalypse, even after Singer's recent comments, but the true test will occur when "X-Men: Apocalypse" arrives in theaters on May 27th and we'll be able to see Singer's final cut for ourselves.