Another Wonderful X-Men Film, With Untapped Potential to be Something Greater

Rating: 8/10 (6 June 2016)

X-Men: Days of Future Past was quite possibly one of the best superhero movies of all-time, and my personal favorite X-Men movie. With big footsteps to follow, X-Men: Apocalypse goes bigger and better in some aspects, and continues the franchise's path of success, but doesn't quite shine like some of its predecessors.
Director and writer Bryan Singer has been able to craft some amazing stories in this growing X-Men universe, with spectacular character arcs spanning two separate main casts, and intense, intimate action steering the ship. The plot of Apocalypse gives an enticing premise, and a great story for longtime X-Men fans to love; the story of the world's first ever Mutant, the title character, and his eternal quest to rid Earth of mankind to build a new Mutant-ruled world. In ways, this is a story we've seen before with Magneto as the main antagonist with his idea of a better world run by Mutants, but the large difference here is the villain, who doesn't want to rule humanity, but extinguish it. In my opinion, Apocalypse is a terrific villain, he's introduced right from the start of the film, and his development through the movie is steady and strong. We have ourselves a great, wicked, powerful villain by the end of the movie, which at the end of the day, helps create a better story.
The pacing of the film was solid for the most part, outside of a few scenes where it starts to feel choppy. One place in particular, is when Quicksilver's spectacular scene is put back-to-back with Apocalypse's first encounter with Professor X. After an epic showdown between the two characters, ending in the X Mansion, we quickly cut to an entirely different feel, with an 80's soundtrack and loads of humor. Now individually, both of these scenes are brilliant, but put side by side, Apocalypse and his awesome evil ways seem to feel dumbed down, and the movie falls out of place momentarily. Aside from that large hiccup in pacing, the movie has a good flow to its storytelling, and with that, maintains a track record of great stories being told in the X-Men franchise.
The action in the film was great. It was large in scope and scale and for the most part, we get to see every character on display a least for a short time. The action sequences don't bog down the pacing of the film, each action scene is written well enough towards the progression of the plot that you won't be caught wondering what the heck is going on. The action is visually engaging, fairly well choreographed, and primarily keeps your eyes glued to the screen.
The X-Men universe is a large one, and with separate time lines now a staple of the franchise, we have two actors for almost every character introduced since the first X-Men film in 2000, older and younger versions. For the most part, this has been a strength of the franchise, with two casts being able to develop the same characters. In Apocalypse, we get to see the introduction of younger versions of some iconic characters, including Cyclops, Jean Grey, Storm, Nightcrawler, Angel and Psylocke. Unfortunately, outside of Nightcrawler, who provides some of the films best laughs, and Cyclops, who is played very well by up-and-comer Tye Sheridan, there is some massively underwhelming development and lack of screen time for the other aforementioned characters. I would have loved to see more time spent of Jean, chiefly given that a redo of the iconic Dark Phoenix Saga is reportedly on the way. Storm, Psylocke and Angel were poorly used and heavily under powered, mainly while enlisted as three of Apocalypse's Four Horsemen that he recruits to help him conquer the Earth. The actual performances by the character's actors are frankly wonderful, but the writing of their characters were not so much.
While some of the newer heroes have yet to blossom into their full potential, the likes of series mainstays Professor X (James McAvoy), Magneto (Michael Fassbender), Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), Beast (Nicholas Hoult) and even fan favorite Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) all return and continue to deliver outstanding performances. Wolverine's cameo in the film just might be the best written scene with Wolvie in 16 years. He's fast, looks the part, and is brutally violent, with more blood spilled in one scene than the rest of the X-Men movies combined, a sneak preview at what's to come in next year's R- rated Wolverine movie. Along with Oscar Issac's spectacular portrayal of Apocalypse, and another wildly entertaining performance by Evan Peters as Quicksilver, the majority of the cast and their characters are done very well and are highly entertaining.
X-Men: Apocalypse isn't the best film in this franchise, or arguably not even in the top 3 of films (Days of Future Past, X2 and First Class), but that doesn't mean it's not a great film. Yes, there are some inconsistencies in the pacing of the film, some criminally underused characters and a lack of overall development for those characters and the continuing growth of their arcs, and the X-Men franchise at large. However, those flaws cannot hold the film back from telling an engaging immediate story with plenty of humor, showcasing some exciting, occasionally grand action scenes, or having a huge roster of characters played extremely well by every one of their actors, with special recognition to Oscar Issac, Michael Fassbender, and James McAvoy. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the last scene of the film, which is arguably the best. It pays homage to the Bronze Age of comic books, includes terrific fan service and teases the future of the franchise. Even with consistent pressure from fans to return the X-Men film rights back to Marvel Studios and the MCU, Fox and director Bryan Singer continue to prove the doubters wrong with another great entry into the epic X-Men universe.
8/10