Has some issues, but still worth seeing.

Rating: 8/10 (30 June 2016)

There was very little that surprised me about the quality of this movie. I knew that it would be a step down from DOFP, but would likely still have a good story with a few problems. Some of the problems were not of the sort I expected. The heightened stakes proved to be less of an issue than I expected. It held back some of the emotional appeal, but not that much. The characters ended up being more of a problem than I had hoped, which was too bad because the other two requels did a really good job with character development.
In this case, there were a few too many characters too give them proper depth, I suppose. The returning characters were good. Charles and Erik were very engaging, and you knew where their philosophies were at. Charles got to be kind of cool this time around rather than just wise. Erik's feeling of entitlement to his rage is brought to a new level. The other returning characters of Moira, Hank, Raven, and Peter were pretty good. It was great to see a little more Quicksilver action. I thought Hank felt more natural this time around. Raven was a little forced, but not as much as I'd feared from her prominence in the trailer. However, the new characters were a big problem. They weren't very well introduced, and didn't really make you want to root for them. The three lesser Horsemen were hardly given any attention, and even the new protagonists were very poorly developed. I suppose some of this can be accounted for by their being in the original three, but it still didn't turn out good. Of course, we can't forget our villain, Apocalypse, who is interesting in more ways than might be expected. I was afraid we might get a flat villain, but his motive is actually pretty good. I really liked how he abhorred tools, especially when he got rid of all the Cold War nukes. Robbing his enemy of weapons rather than using those weapons himself revealed so much about his value on natural power and ego.
The story as a whole was decent, but some of the scenes were excellent. I loved the opening with the transference of Apocalypse. Magneto losing his family was also done really well, along with his subsequent recruitment by Apocalypse. The climax was also pretty good, and the fashion in which Apocalypse was defeated, while it felt a little clichéd, still felt plausible and thematic. However, the entire sequence in Col. Stryker's base with Wolverine and everything was totally unnecessary. It made sense that he would capture the mutants at that point, but that space could have been filled much better.
The visuals were top-notch, which is to be expected. The Quicksilver scene was probably the best spfx scene overall. The script did a decent job with dialogue, but it didn't do very well with shifting focus between the different groups of characters at the right pace. The acting from the returning roles was good, but the new faces gave some flat performances. I was particularly unimpressed with Sophie Turner as Jean Grey.
The theme of mutants fitting in with the rest of society was not touched upon very much here. It comes up a bit in Hank and Raven's conversation and the stage fight between Angel and Nightcrawler. There is more of a focus on controlling and unleashing abilities, mostly with Jean and Scott, but It's rarely addressed. However, the way Apocalypse amplifies his followers' powers is rather interesting. With the exception of Angel, he really just tells them "You have so much undiscovered potential, let me show you how to tap into it."
So, as you've probably already heard, it's not the best of the X-Men movies, but that doesn't make it bad. If you think you'll want to see it at some point, go catch it now while it's still in theaters rather than waiting and watching it on your computer for free. It's definitely a movie you want to see on a big screen. You should see at least First Class and DOFP first because the events of both are referenced and there are a couple of flashbacks to them as well. There are only a couple of references to the original movies, pretty much just in the Wolverine cameo, so if allusions like "would you prefer yellow spandex?" annoy you, don't worry too much. If you hate save-the-world plots, this is better than most, but it still has most of the prototypical elements. Overall Rating: 8.4/10.