An X-Men movie that needs a look in the mirror, or a better editor.

Rating: 7/10 (31 May 2016)

The film itself is good, though storyline minimalist and motivations rabbit-from-a-hat style, it is 'saved' by a few good (though inconsistent) performances, and classic comic-book visuals. My favourite part in this one was too-cool-for-school Quicksilver, who gains a little depth (though considering what usually is at stake in these movies, the comic relief is usually a deeper role than meets the eye.
-Before I go any further, I'll just say my opinion on the film is basically like comparing the original X-Men scene of Eric in the camp, with the new remade version: I think the original is vastly superior, especially emotionally, if only because the 'comic book pretense' of the new approach is holding them back from a heartfelt depth-
My feeling on this is that they don't always follow through on a good idea - I think the Rogue version was better as it bridged the original relationships when they had to help each other, though the payoff with Jean's return was equivalent but not as connected to the desperate situation.
Seeing how the timeline 'returned' was one of the biggest emotional payoffs for fans obviously, having seen characters die one by one fighting in the future (twice), but Apocalypse just doesn't pack the same depth. The emotional truths or even character archs are quite bare in this one, with most performances and concepts falling flat (even the actors seem to be distancing themselves from the storyline - Jennifer's freedom fighter is stale, and Fassbender's conjured-up life is shallow to the point where seeing him in the iron mill is more interesting than having a family.
The film's main motivation is to see how the characters would react with a major villain strolling into-shot, and in that regard the movie was a success - X-Men as a series has a lot to give in terms of storyline chemistry, but of course this needs to be given the care and love of it's predecessors. The storyline is weaker than First Class (having little thought for collateral damage or even civilian representation), but Oscar as EnSabahNur was a successful enough distraction from what was lacking in shallow/ thin character weaving. For example Storm showing up next to the bad guy being little more than a shell of a person (contrary to the assumption of being in Africa and using her powers to manipulate the weather as in the traditional character), and Nightcrawler inexplicably being (yes an emo) included in some ridiculous fight club - which if done right could have been a successful reference to Logan in X-Men, but too many fumbles and shallow details make this fall flatter than Spider-Man's wrestling antics.
Finally - the best part of this film is the simple continuity of basic chemistry and roles formed in previous films Ultimately the film could have done with using details from past outings to enhance it's emotional focus and flow within the film (the Auschwitz scene was a good mention here, which helped boost the essential theme of the film - power and domination, the return of Moira's memory was a solid emotional reference, all paling to the flashback of the origin of Charles and Eric's friendship). However it lacked the ability to invoke the set-ups presented in Future's Past which were particularly relevant - the 'lost' future that is essentially wiped away now, involving Jean etc and the emotional journey Charles went on in light of the phoenix saga would have made a brilliant few seconds in enhancing the mind-battle. They seems to be taking the genre into a more skin-deep direction, which disappoints after the last film especially. Some real headway has to be made in character development (which it does touch on in Jean's nightmare scene etc, but the fact remains that this is not a comic-book, you can't gloss over everything and hope the audience holds onto something flimsy when it doesn't effect other areas - the phoenix and 'unleash the power' is an undercut to whatever the previous film achieved). Whatever happens next, they just need time to assemble the pieces properly (they're only human after all, heh), allowing characters to step into a reality more than seemingly 'welcome to Xavier school, care to try the danger-room?' type approach. As long as regulars like Nic Hoult and (duh) James McAvoy are around, this shouldn't be a problem.
For the next film, I think they should actually consider doing another future-based movie, in the same region as Deadpool seemingly is - with Cable etc) - as after such massive destruction and unmasking of 'these guys are mutants' that Professor X tried hard to prevent in the past, it's only natural that a witch-hunt would be accelerated in this timeline. I would suggest that a storyline similar to X-Men 2's mind-control be a good stepping stone for character chemistry - perhaps like the Ultimate Alliance 2 game's nanites etc.