Better than the critics would have you believe.

Rating: 8/10 (4 June 2016)

If X-MEN:APOCALYPSE does not quite rise to the level of DOFP it is not for want of trying, for this latest installment in the franchise really goes for the bigger is better style of film making. From the beginning, many of us longtime Marvel and X-Men fans have waited with anticipation for the movies to tackle En Sabah Nur, one of the mutant's biggest foes, and for the most part, the movie pays off nicely.
But it is not without its flaws, starting with a tiring two and half hours running time, mostly because the first 45 minutes or so is all about exposition and setting up the many, many characters who appear, including Apocalypse himself, his future four horsemen, the teen age versions of some X-Men anchor characters, along with catching up with Charles Xavier, Eric Lehnsherr, Mystique and Quicksilver. This has become a staple of the X movies, where different versions old favorites have to the reintroduced over and over again. Nobody trusts the audience to just jump right in to the story and go with it. It's nearly an hour into the film before the good mutants and bad mutants begin to move in directions that will lead to the inevitable Big Showdown at the end. I will say that for the most part, the movie is free of the clunky plotting that is so obvious in other super hero movies-BATMANvSUPERMAN being one of the most recent and worst offenders.
As in all comic book movies, if there is a good villain, then it's a good movie, and in this respect, Apocalypse might be seen as something of a disappointment in that he's just another megalomaniacal super villain bent on taking over the earth because he's just better than everybody else. In a lot of ways, he just comes off as a mutant version of Ultron. But this is where casting is key, and Oscar Isaac gets so much more out of the part than was evidently in the script, with makeup that is a dead ringer for the comic book and FoxKids cartoon version of the character. Isaac is able make this Apocalypse truly menacing by using a good actor's best tools: his voice and facial expressions. He truly gets this villain's malevolence. Of course at the end, we get the standard face off with evil, where some of the bad guys have a sudden epiphany and change sides, while the supremely all powerful Apocalypse merely wounds and disables the heroes when he could clearly just kill them outright, but then they wouldn't all be able to join forces and take him down, like we've seen so many times before in other super hero movies.
The best part of the bigger is better comes when Quicksilver saves the students at the Xavier Institute from certain death in an explosion; this is CGI at its best and utterly tops the great scene in DOFP where the speedster rescued Magneto. It alone is worth the price a ticket, which is due in no small part to Evan Peters, reprising his role from the previous movie and building upon that earlier performance. Another great scene is the caged match between Angel and Nightcrawlwer.
Tye Sheridan, Sophie Turner and Codi McPhee-Schmit are excellent as the junior league versions of Cyclops, Jean Grey and Nightcrawler. James McAvoy and Nicholas Hoult are back as Charles Xavier and Hank McCoy, so too are Josh Helman and Rose Byrne as William Stryker and Moira MacTaggert. Newcomer Ben Hardy is Archangel, while Alexandra Shipp easily steps into Halle Berry's shoes as Storm. The best acting, by far, is done by Michael Fassbinder as Eric Lehnsherr, who perfectly captures Magneto's torment as, yet again, tragedy pushes him to the dark side. The death of his family in the woods is one the strongest scenes in any of the X films. But how many times do we have to see the same sequence where he and Charles have the same conversation over whether mutants and humans can live together and will Eric stay and be part of the solution or just walk away-again.
And it's always great to see Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique, who manages the nail the comic book character to a tee. That Hugh Jackman cameo as Weapon X wasn't really needed, but he is still a welcome sight in what will always be his signature role.
Best piece of dialogue: that dig at LAST STAND.
As for the next movie, well bring on Mr. Sinister and the Mutant Massacre.