Doesn't Hold Up to it's predecessor

Rating: 7/10 (14 May 2019)

I re-watched this film today in preparation for Dark Phoenix being released next month and while it was not as good as "Future Past," and there are some shortcomings, I think it still has its place in the X-Men franchise. My biggest issue with this installment is the time jump of 10 years after the events of "Future Past" from 1973 to 1983. While there is some appeal to seeing the characters across the decades, aside from seeing them wearing 80's attire there is no plot reason for such a time jump (aside from Magneto's family I guess). There is no attempt to make any of the characters from the prior 2 movies, (Beast, Mystique, Magneto, Prof. X, Havoc) look 10 years older. I think they don't even look any older than they did in "First Class." If Magneto was supposed to be at Auschwitz as a child, then why is he in his late 30's/early 40's? Even if the character was born in 1935 or so, that would make him 48 at the time of the plot in 1983. I don't think there was any reason for the jump from the 60s, to the 70s to the 80s other than to say "hey look at these guys all wearing different clothes.
The biggest complaint I've seen about this installment is that the villain, Apocalypse, is generic. I think the idea of Apocalypse as the villain was a good one, but they didn't do a good enough job establishing his motivation for why he was trying to destroy the world. The opening sequence of him in ancient Egypt where he was supposedly transferring him consciousness to a new body was really ever fully explained. I thought there could've been more to show his origins since he was the first mutant.
The introduction of the Dark Phoenix character was a highlight though and now that we know that is the next film I look forward to the retelling of that story.