Good X-Men movie ... for kids

Rating: 1/10 (6 October 2016)

Seriously, this is what they came up with considering the huge potential there was to actually make something grand and epic?! The movie as a whole is terribly "weak" and comes off more as an X-Men "Light" kind of movie.
There isn't really much that holds together, the storyline is embarrassingly linear without any turns or twists and not to mention short: Bad guy wakes up, gathers 4 mutants, kidnaps Xavier, builds Pyramid, final (and only) confrontation, finished! You're left with the impression that there should have been more, more substance, more action, more of anything really.
Hardly any of the actors pull it off, including J. McAvoy and M. Fassbender. We know from the character names who they're supposed to be portraying, but performance wise they're a sad comparison to P. Stewart and I. McKellen. You don't really get the real sense that they're supposed to be the future Prof. Xavier and Magneto as portrayed in previous movies or the comics even. Their renditions of the characters is superficial at best.
S. Turner playing Jean Grey is terrible, she's anything but convincing, it feels more like she has no idea what her character is supposed to be, and the way her character was designed in the movie is poor. All she ever does is just touch her temples, wow! Amazing stuff.
Separate from Turner's performance, the Jean Grey character part as written for this movie is anything but convincing relative to the how she is in the comics. The scene where Cyclops gets his shades and talks to Jean, other mutants are heard saying "freak" in their direction. Now this is just lame. Its a "school" of mutants, with varying degrees of powers of all kinds, so the fact that any call others freaks is just completely not credible. It would be the same as if you had a school for super smart kids and the one that always gets the best points is called a freak because he can do maths as quickly as a calculator, it just doesn't hold together. In this context only "normal" people would call others freaks, its the whole reason for them all being confined to a secret location outside of society. And the reason for them calling Jean a freak isn't justified in the movie at all. All we know is that she had a powerful nightmare that made the wallpaper melt (and we're also supposed to assume there were other incidents, but it still doesn't justify the "freak" appellation). Furthermore, the nature of her "inner" Phoenix isn't laid out or explained, except for the nightmare scene, but even then its only hinted at. And Jean's just supposed to be able to "awaken" the Phoenix in the end to finish off Apocalypse? Its just too convenient and without any build-up whatsoever.
Lastly, Apocalypse himself was an utter disappointment. He is supposed to be uber-strong and nigh unstoppable, yet, again, this isn't tapped into at all. All he is seen doing is dissolve concrete, learn culture touching a TV screen (which is just too reminiscent of Milla Jovovich in The Fifth Element), enhance other mutant's powers and build a great pyramid. Come on! Apocalypse is supposed to be god-like, but comes off as a fraction of how is shown to be in the comics, its a joke! We never really get a sense of how close the Earth was to actual doom, he passes off as just another mutant villain, not at all worthy of his name.
Raven's role in the final fight is also extremely poor. They're supposedly minutes away from complete devastation yet all she came to do was to tell Magneto she's going to fight for "what she has left" in the hopes that that will somehow melt his heart and turn him against Apocalypse.. Really?! That's all she had to say to try to convince him to change his course of action? Her other usage is to indirectly influence Storm into changing sides as well. Amazing stuff...
All around poor storyline and poor performance. This is what you would get if the movie had been made by some unknown, lower cost team trying to enter the Hollywood movie industry.