Something, something, something Prelude to a Better Sequel

Rating: 1/10 (8 June 2016)

From the title and rating I'm sure you can guess that I was not a fan of Apocalypse. After the previous two movies setting such a high bar, it would be understandable for the third movie to maybe slightly go under, but no; instead the people behind this film made sure to bend their back's to a 90 degree angle, and limbo under that bar with absolutely no problem, which putting it like that, makes it sound like a success, but, I assure you it was not. The acting was fine, the casting was fine, the visuals were fine, and the makeup was fine. It was the story, or lack thereof, where this movie suffered tremendously.
For the first hour and a half absolutely NOTHING happens, Apocalypse gathers some followers that takes more than half the movie, Jean Grey and Scott Summers make a cameo, Raven/Mystique saves another fellow blue man so they can start their own music group or something, I'm not sure I wasn't even paying attention at this point. The whole marketing was touted for featuring this all- powerful villain, a God some would say, and yet he does nothing. He grants powers, taps into a character's mind, and monologues. Seriously every time he opened his mouth I thought he was auditioning to be the next voice of Shodan for System Shock 3. I digress. Our villain was trapped under the Earth for thousands of years because of convoluted plot points. He is then released because some light shines through a hole and hits his tomb so to speak, which is also ridiculous because he was *spoilers* 10 feet under the ground, I find it so hard to believe not a single inch of sunlight ever hit it before that point. Also in this scene showed the return of Moira MacTaggert, who was absent in Days of Future Past, also due to convoluted plot points. Essentially Charles wipes her memory immediately after the events of First Class to "protect her". Which is again completely ridiculous since it was very well demonstrated she was someone who could very clearly handle herself, but, they had to think of a reason as to why she wasn't in the last installment and that was the best the writers could come up with. *spoilers* She gets her memories back at the end of the movie and instead of being livid that he would give her a telepathic version of a date rape drug, she is happy and kisses him *end spoilers*.
So again throughout this movie (which also takes place in the time span of 2/3 days) we're treated to a build-up for the "epic" final fight, all that exposition and "plot" threads lead to this final fight which lasts maybe the last 20 minutes of the movie. Which wouldn't have been that bad if there had been any other fight/action/struggle throughout the movie. I mean they get *spoilers* kidnapped by Stryker and Jean Grey releases Weapon X (Wolverine) but they even managed to make that into a snooze fest. *end spoilers* Again though the final battle is coming and we're treated to a long awaited build-up, so imagine by surprise when we find that this final "battle" is just as sluggish as the rest of the movie. *spoilers* Storm and Cyclops battle it out but that was all shown in the trailer, Jean moves some debris to block Angel from hitting them with his blades, and Beast beats up Psylocke, who gets like 45 seconds of screen time. Oh yeah, Apocalypse strangles Raven for a bit, but again that was also in the trailer. Sansa Stark finally gets to show her stuff though by absolutely annihilating Apocalypse, with the power of the Phoenix Force, which honestly is the most interesting part of the movie. *end spoilers*
*spoilers* We're then treated to an after-credits scene which hints at Mr. Sinister appearing in the next film, which was also interesting *end spoilers*.
So again I wasn't a fan, I tried so hard to like it, but I couldn't. As stated in a much better Marvel movie "Compromise where you can. And where you can't, don't." Well I definitely held true to that advice for this movie. Also can we just talk about how LAME that Stan Lee cameo was. In a year where Stan Lee was *spoilers* an announcer for a strip club in Deadpool and coined "Tony Stank" in Civil War, this one was awful and made his cameo in Netflix's Daredevil seem like Oscar material *end spoilers*. Okay I'm done, I've said my piece.