SO much better than its given credit for!

Rating: 10/10 (5 October 2016)

This is easily my favorite X-Men film since X2, and I was not expecting it to be. With all the negative press I'm not sure what movie most people were watching. There are some flaws but it achieves something historic in the franchise history: it gets the characters right! The film benefits from the absence of Wolverine as the main character and finally does justice to Cyclops and most importantly Jean Grey.
This is the hardcore X-Men fanboy coming out in me, but Jean Grey has always been the most interesting of any character in the comics for me. Sophie Turner does a great job as a young Jean Grey afraid of her powers but learning to unleash them. It nearly makes up for the atrocity that was X3.
Xavier, Magneto, Quicksilver, Beast and Mystique all shine. Jennifer Lawrence is the best she's ever been in these films and I've been dubious of her from the start. She really stepped up in this one.
This film's Nightcrawler is good--not as good as X2's, but it's still great to see him. We are introduced to the new Storm, Psylocke, & Archangel, and while they could have used some extra depth they were great and I hope to see more of them going forward.
Now... Apocalypse. He was fine. I think if some of his powers that were shown in the trailer had been left as a surprise for the movie he'd have had a bigger impact. He was still a great villain though, and the whole mythology around him was very cool.
All in all, I went into this expecting to be disappointed and was pleasantly surprised from start to finish. If you're a fan of the series --or just the POTENTIAL of the series-- watch this. I bet you'll love it. I did.