Apocalypse Now

Rating: 5/10 (9 June 2016)

The film begins in Ancient Egypt where En Sabah Nur is worshipped as a god. He is Apocalypse, the first mutant and he can amass the powers of other mutants.
After an attempt to kill him goes wrong his followers awaken him in 1983 and Apocalypse recruits his four horsemen, a team of mutants that includes Magneto reeling from the death of his wife and child in the Polish forest and a young Storm who has been residing in Egypt. They intend to create a new world order by destroying the previous world first.
Professor X and Raven have to lead a new team against them that includes Cyclops, new to the academy and who starts a teen romance with Jean Grey. Comic relief is provided by Nightcrawler who sports a Thriller style leather jacket.
This is a bloated film with thin characterisation and even the 1980s period setting was rather empty in comparison of the sheen of First Class which was set in the 1960s. Do not get me started as to how Professor Xavier and Magneto do not age, these guys should be nearing 50 now and look nothing like Patrick Stewart's and Ian McKellan's older versions.
The whole film is an empty spectacle. So Magneto just wants to live an ordinary working life but when he saves someone at a factory we know he can wave goodbye to his family.
I even found the film rather morally dubious. We are in a scene set in a former Nazi concentration camp. Magneto asks Apocalypse where was he when his family were getting killed. Apocalypse mentions something like he was unable to help. Well something tells me with a name like Apocalypse he would had admired the havoc that the Nazi's created with the holocaust. After all he only plans to destroy the world himself, men, women, children, animal life, plant life and Magneto helps out as countless people die in the climax.
The film has some nice touches, a zinger of a joke about the third film in the trilogy (which this is) never being as good as the younger X Men come out from watching Return of the Jedi in a cinema.
The best scenes in the film is when the school is blown up, the students are saved by Quicksilver who literally just dropped by in a slow motion sequence set to the Eurythmics song 'Sweet Dreams.'
However much of the film lacks resonance it is moderately entertaining but also a by the numbers action film. We think here we go again. Magneto has just killed millions but Professor X wants to see the good in him.