Reviews & Ratings for
X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)

This movie seems to have gotten a bad rep from the critics. After 2 Super Hero Movie tent poles since March, the superhero genre is a bit fatigued. But let me say this first, this movie is GOOD!
I don’t know which film the critics were seeing, but they are dead wrong about this particular film.
X-Men Apocalypse is about this super mutant who has been alive for thousands of years and was then buried since 3600B.C. This mutant is back to wreak havoc. Kill all humans, end the world etc…
Only the X-men can stop them.
A lot of the movie now falls on the newer and younger X-Men. This movie does a good job of slowly building up and explaining every character and how the events around them influence their decisions.
Singer does another competent job of direction and this movie feels a bit reminiscent of x2 from 2003. The music is at times nostalgic, at times new. The acting is even all around. The trailers make it look like this movie will focus a lot of Mystique/Raven. It features her, but she doesn’t steal the limelight. She shares almost equal time with Beast and their chemistry still shines through.
Over all, this is a great 3rd part after First Class and Day of Future Past.
This movie could have been better, there is no denying that, the build up is there but somehow the climactic feeling of the end of the world is quite missing and that is my only issue with the film. When things come to a head, it doesn’t feel epic even though it should.
Rating : 7.5 / 10 .
Overall it’s a good film that follow the previous 2 films. It’s essential that the viewer has seen the previous two films in this trilogy.

The action scenes were top notch. QuickSilver once again stole the show with perfection. Since the moment that the scene becomes slow and a bee appears next to a flower, we knew what is going to happen.
There's also a very familiar face that turns up towards the end of the movie...and it gets Bloody..!!

Apart from Magneto, the villains didn't have much character development.
The main villain Apocalypse has omnipotent power meant to decimate civilizations, but his efforts are mostly spent for futile chases that mostly involve expanding his network of mutants.

What?!

This is the most torn I think I've ever been over a movie like this. Half of it is, well, something while the other is begging for a potential franchise destruction. You see...

The good half:
- Magneto's story up until after Apocalypse commands him to destroy Auschwitz delivers in pathos and manages to conjure up a plot point darker than anything in Dawn of Justice.
- The violence hits the limits of what 12A/PG-13 can allow. People are scorched to flesh and bones, manipulated brutally, crushed flat, impaled and even decapitated onscreen.
- The way it juggles real political and ecological conflicts is also a plus.
- You wouldn't believe that is actually Oscar Isaac.
- The very fact that Magneto destroyed Auschwitz.
- See below.

The bad half:
- Only a few of the characters are portrayed as fully developed and/or remotely interesting.
- The effects end up looking rather cheap at times, such as a terribly fake green-screen shot of Storm.
- Stan Lee's cameo is played rather gratuitously. Yes, camera, we know.
- The dialogue is cheesy and forgettable, and so is Apocalypse.
- James McAvoy gives his hammiest performance in ages.
- It just feels so goddamn by-the-numbers compared to the conflicts in Days of Future Past.

And yet, of course it's not anyone's fault this film is so inferior. Kinberg and Singer are under Hollwood studio pressure, so they already know that there's no way Days of Future past can possibly be trumped, so barely any damns are given. When they are given, however, they're some of the ballsiest damns I've witnessed in modern superhero and comic book cinema, and that says an awful lot.

The closest it does come to topping Days of Future Past is Quicksilver's glorious escapade in which he saves nearly everyone in the school from being engulfed in a blast to Eurythmics, which is one of the best things I've seen this year. There's just so much that makes me want to appreciate this film as it is rather than just an experience, which I'd say is more than watching even Civil War could give me, but there's just too much to underwhelm me for me to do so. In such cases, the meta point it managed to go for in relevance to Return of the Jedi unfortunately stands straight.