Review: X-Men: Apocalypse

Rating: 5/10 (21 May 2016)

"At Least We Can All Agree The Third One Is Always The Worst"
Interestingly this quote from the movie, that's hardly connected to anything plot related seems to have turned out to be a self fulfilling prophecy, which is a shame, because this movie had potential to be the climax of the (at this point) trilogy. All the pieces seemed to have been placed quite neatly for it to work. Unfortunately it didn't. The movie is especially weak in it's early phases. While the first scene works decently as an exposition to who the films antagonist is going to be, the next couple of scenes slow down the pace, giving us introductory scenes to "new" characters. This could have been fine, had the characters been interesting. But they weren't. Luckily the movie has McAvoy, who even 3 movies in, is still the highlight of the series, due to the witty personality of his character (Charles Xavier). As for the other main character of this series (Magneto); this movie gives him a new start, but only as a setup for his involvement in the conflict, that is about to unfold. Unfortunately his character arc is just mashed into the large multi-character story line and therefore fails to peak the interest it's intending to catch. Another character worth mentioning is Quicksilver, who can best be described as a big convenience for the plot progressing into the direction the authors want to. This may sound like a negative thing, but something about Evan Peter's character just made me swallow it and go along with it. As for the antagonist; while not necessarily well written, I do feel like praising Oscar Isaac's portrayal of Apocalypse. The plot is for the most part character driven, which could go either way. In this case it didn't work out best, because the conflicts of the characters felt like something, that had been previously done already and some of the highlighted characters lacked the screen time to get an actually interesting characterization and development. Another aspect of the plot is the mutants using their powers to their advantage, which results in funny comic relief and entertaining battles. Due to this I actually felt the movie picking itself up towards the end, I was however displeased with the resolution of the conflict and it's aftermath. Overally the film is entertaining and ignoring the character introduction scenes, I wasn't bored during it's run time. That however does not mean it doesn't have it's fair share of problems.