Not dull, but way too convoluted and busy

Rating: 7/10 (15 June 2016)

The latest in the ever-growing X-Men franchise, X-Men: Apocalypse (2016, **) is generally okay. There are several problems with it that will be noticed by even someone who's just vaguely familiar with the characters. There are too many story lines and too many characters. There are plot holes. The plot is also staggeringly familiar. Continuity with the earlier films is almost nonexistent.
It's all about the first (apparently) mutant, En Sabah Nur (Oscar Isaac). We meet up with him in ancient Egypt as he's somehow transferring his consciousness into a new body, seeing as how his current one's decrepit. Then there's a rebellion, the transference doesn't quite take, and everyone's buried under rock and sand for centuries. Until the present, when an undercover CIA agent (don't ask) wanders to a subterranean lair in Cairo but doesn't cover up the entrance with a carpet, thus allowing the sun to come in and revive En Sabah Nur, who then proceeds to kill people with his mind and recruit mutants.
Meanwhile! In eastern Europe, Magneto, I mean Eric Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender) is living the simple life as a factory worker with a doting wife and a little girl, which certainly means bad things will happen, as they do. (This is set after he tried to kill the president but was stopped by Mystique.) Short story long, Magneto flips the heck out, has a crisis of conscience, kills people, and flees. But not before shouting, "What do you want from me?" to the heavens. He's recruited by En Sabah Nur (who, by the way, is the Apocalypse of the title). En Sabah Nur's plan is to destroy Earth and build a new society, in other words the same as countless other villains.
And because En Sabah Nur is such a strong mutant, he's able to get into the mind of one Charles Xavier – manipulate him, in fact. Which allows En Sabah Nur to find all the mutants he needs, and which also gives director Bryan Singer a chance to bring out a plethora of X-characters, like Storm, Psylocke, Cyclops, Beast, Angel, Havoc, Mystique (of course), and Jean Grey. Most of these characters were in earlier X-Men movies, but now they're all different ages. I don't mean different just from the other movies, I mean different relative to each other. Like in an earlier movie, two characters might be about the same age, and here they're suddenly a generation or so apart.
X-Men: Apocalypse isn't dull, but it's way too convoluted for the franchise. It's almost as if no one thought there'd be any more of these films after this one, so they had to cram everyone in. The result – too many characters; a winding, tortuous plot; story lines with no real resolution; and general incoherence. It's a kitchen sink approach that just never works. Some actors fare well, such as Nicholas Hoult as Beast and Evan Peters as Quicksilver (who, incidentally, has the best scene in the movie, hands down). Some mail it in, like McAvoy and Jennifer Lawrence (Mystique). Some try their best, like Isaac and Fassbender. And some seem ill-equipped and over their heads, like Sophie Turner, who plays the indomitable (but young) Jean Grey. Turner is really wooden.