9 Things We Learned From the New X-Men: Apocalypse Trailer

Behold the greatest mutant to ever walk the Earth. 

The wait is over. After leaked images, horrible fan-made trailers, and tons of speculation, fans can rest easy knowing that the first official trailer for X-Men: Apocalypse is out, and it’s so, so good. As Apocalypse, the world’s most powerful mutant, awakens and seeks domination over just about everyone and everything, our favorite mutants band together to stop him. Fists will fly and shit will blow up in quite possibly the best X-Men movie yet.

While the wait until May 27th is going to be painful, take no shame in watching the trailer over and over again until you’ve burned every detail in your brain about the newest installment to the X-Men franchise. We’ve broken it down into the best (and most important moments), so you don’t have to.

1. Something Wicked This Way Comes


Flashes of a full-bodied figure interlaced with war, strife, famine, and destruction plague Jean Grey’s dreams. The telepathic mutant (Sophie Turner) awakens in a cold sweat only to have Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) at her bedside. “I saw the end of the world. I could feel all of this death,” the newcomer tells Xavier (who’s rocking a serious porn star hairstyle). But even as he reassures her that it was just in her head, we know that isn’t true. Jean Grey is known to become one of the strongest mutants of all time, and it seems her powers are kicking into high gear with the coming of a potentially unbeatable foe. Always trust your instincts, girl.

2. What’s Up, Apocalypse?


The 2:27 behemoth of a trailer wastes no time in introducing us to Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac), an extremely powerful mutant and the titular villain of the latest X-Men installment. We’re brought back in flashbacks to ancient Egypt, where the self-proclaimed ‘second coming’ is in full hooded garb, floating his way through the pyramids. We don’t know why he’s back in this timeline, or how he came to rise again, but we do know that he’s pisssssssssed. He isn’t a fan of how mutants have been living, and he wants to see some change. 

3. We Meet the Four Horsemen


Apocalypse may be a huge meathead blessed with just about every single power you can imagine, but he still had a band of loyal followers at his side at all times to do his dirty work. That’s where the Horsemen come into play. We had some idea of who would made up this group, but this first look of the team together can make your heart skip a beat. Say hello to Storm (Alexandra Shipp), Archangel (Ben Hardy), Psylocke (Olivia Munn), and Magneto (Michael Fassbender), a ragtag group ‘imbued with power’ to amplify their mutant abilities. We don’t know their backstories just yet (except for Magneto, sort of), or why Apocalypse chose them, but we do know that they’re going to be a serious force to be reckoned with. Plus, we’ve seen those Instagrams of Olivia Munn — it’s going to be good. 

4. Losing All Control


Things start to pick up momentum, and we see Apocalypse and his team invading the School for Gifted Youngsters, clearly on a mission to kidnap Charles. This isn’t the best of signs, since the mansion is usually heavily guarded with security, but that didn’t seem to stop the most powerful mutant of all time. It really doesn’t help that later on in the trailer, we see a huge explosion of what appears to be this same location.. so only time will tell what will go down in this timeline. Plus, this is our first look at Jennifer Lawrence in the trailer, and she’s lookin’ damn good. But more on her next.

5. Jennifer Lawrence Leads the Pack


It’s common knowledge that whatever J-Law touches turns immediately to gold, so it comes as no surprise that the 25-year old actress will seemingly lead the charge in X-Men: Apocalypse following Xavier’s kidnapping. “That’s why I’m here.. to fight,” she tells former/sort-of current lover, Beast, before holding on for dear life in the Blackbird as the group heads into battle. It’s going to be pretty exciting with Lawrence’s Mystique, a typical villain in the past, at the forefront of a group made up of heroes. But then again, with the timeline shift thanks to Days of Future Past, expect a lot of things to be different come the third (and possibly final) X-Men installment.

6. Fresh Meat


We already saw the young version of Jean Grey in the first few seconds, but now we get a glimpse of the newest additions to the X-Men, Cyclops (Tye Sheridan) and Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee). Since the trio introduced must be in their early teens at best, they lack a lot of experience and probably aren’t equipped to be going into battle with a mutant said to be invincible. That being said, Lawrence lets them know that they don’t need to be in control of their powers. “This is war,” she says in very similar fashion to District 12 victor Katniss Everdeen. Play time is over, and Jean Grey, Nightcrawler, and Cyclops just got drafted to the big leagues. But where the fuck is Jubilee during these fights?

7. Archangel Takes Flight


As the music builds and things start to go boom, we bare witness to a powerful demonstration of the Horsemen’s new powers. Psylocke is ominously missing (which could be a nice surprise once the film debuts on Memorial Day) but the one that really got our gears moving was Archangel. The character was poorly introduced back in X-Men: The Last Stand, so it’s great to see Ben Hardy looking like a serious BAMF with his metal plated wings equipped with rapid-fire daggers. We’ve yet to hear him speak, but at this rate, his actions tell us enough.

8. A Whole New World


Up until today, we weren’t quite what Apocalypse’s end game truly was. But after seeing the trailer, we know for sure that he wants change, and he wants it now. Cut to New York City, a place just about every bad guy goes when they want to fuck shit up. The Egyptian mutant wants to start from scratch, and that’s exactly what he’s doing with no care of the casualties. We do see the Twin Towers in the background though, which gives us another confirmation of the film’s time: the ’80s. Count your blessings for a killer soundtrack.

9. Bald is Beautiful


We don’t know, and we don’t know why, but Charles Xavier has finally shaved his head. The ‘Mr. Clean’ lookalike closes out the beautiful, beautiful trailer in his iconic wheelchair, rocking a nice shiny dome that most definitely put a smile on just about every faithful X-Men fan across the globe. Could this be a promo shot made simply for the trailer? Looks like it, since it doesn’t really fit in anywhere with the two minutes we just saw, but we don’t care. This movie is going to be gold.