X-Men Franchise is Running Out of Steam...

Rating: 5/10 (19 July 2016)

After immensely enjoying the turn the X-Men franchise took after the disappointment of X-Men: The Last Stand, I was pretty excited to see this movie. I love comics, but I never got into the X-Men, so I can excuse some of the inaccuracies that seemed to upset hardcore fans. I just enjoyed the movies.
X-Men Apocalypse is the weakest film since duds like Last Stand and Wolverine Origins. It just didn't have a whole lot going on. One of the biggest critiques of Marvel (yes, I know X-Men films aren't produced by Marvel Studios, but I'm speaking of the publisher of the original medium) is that their villains are lackluster. The big baddie through the whole franchise has been Magneto, easily the most charismatic and entertaining Marvel villain on film. Though we've had brushes with Stryker and Trask and his sentinels, this is the first movie in which the X-Men had taken on a true super villain who wasn't Magneto-- Wolverine vs. The Silver Samurai aside.
But it's almost like director Bryan Singer painted himself into a corner with Apocalypse. The villain was too powerful and could have easily achieved his goals without the help of his "four horsemen." He could have ended the world, in mere minutes, all by himself. But, of course, that would make a boring movie, so Singer and Co. had to figure out what to do with the world's most powerful and dangerous mutant for two hours before the final climax was to begin.
There were scenes where the villains were literally sitting around the desert talking about how they were going to lay waste to a city on the horizon. There were scenes where the most powerful of the villains went out recruiting much less powerful villains to join him. Really, Singer just didn't know what to do with this character. How do you create conflict and drama when the bad guy is just too powerful? Well, you can't.
Of course, after two hours of watching the most powerful mutant ever talk about what he is going to do (instead of simply doing it) he finally unleashes his fury. Except that, the X- Men actually have the most powerful mutant in the world on their side in Jean Grey.
So, again, why is Jean not simply destroying Apocalypse in the first 10 minutes of the movie? Because, running time needs filler.
And that's basically what this movie is: Filler. They came up with a concept that would make the storytelling aspect problematic. And rather than tweaking the concept or fleshing out the story with subplots, they just assumed explosions and superhero fights would be enough to carry the film.
They weren't.