Marvel: Oscar Isaac Marvel performances ranked worst to best

3. En Sabah Nur

Marvel project: X-Men: Apocalypse

"“So much faith in their tools, in their machines. You can fire your arrows from the Tower of Babel, but you can never strike god!”- En Sabah Nur"

In a previous article ranking the best villains of the 20th Century Fox Marvel era, this writer ranked Apocalypse ninth (out of 12). A lot of it had nothing to do with Oscar Isaac himself. When you give a performer a script, they can only do so much. Even if they’re great at improvising lines, only so much can be done. In this case, Isaac had to overcome a bad plot, some dreadful acting, and a horrible costume. In the end, En Sabah Nur was good, just not great. However, it wasn’t his fault.

Oscar Isaac could have been better if given a different creative team. There were two big problems with the character. First, the audio of Apocalypse was weird. The double voice works for Venom, but not for En Sabah Nur. It was as if the voice was meant to be scary. Apocalypse doesn’t need tricks to be terrifying. His powers and speeches do that. The second was his white eyes. They were supposed to signify him using his powers. It came off looking cheesy.

Neither negative was his fault, but they were distracting. Had those two things not been a factor, Isaac’s body language would have been the focal point. That would have been enough for him to take control of each scene. Instead, X-Men: Apocalypse remains one of the worst movies in Marvel history.