Epic Letdown

Rating: 2/10 (31 May 2016)

It seems like the superhero movie-making crowd stopped trying a few years ago. The original X-Men movie went into many of the character's backstories and had a plot with plausible motive and execution. The team had to work together to figure our how to defeat the villain, who really wasn't a villain. And, they were normal people trying to make sense of and cope with extraordinary powers. It was a film beyond just the fighting. X-Men Apocalypse didn't really bother much with story and got right to the video game-like throwing magic around until time ran out then the villain got overpowered where he was not overpowered by the same magic before. For those just looking for good fight scenes, you have probably seen better fighting on the Mortal Kombat video game.
Marvel had a golden opportunity with the Apocalypse character. When you have the first and greatest mutant who ever lived you can tell the greatest background story of all time. The background story basically came down to Apocalypse stealing powers, not using them in any smart way, then seemingly forgetting them when the clock ran out and it was time to roll the credits. I would have liked to see where Apocalypse came from, how he grew into the being he is now and when he got to the 1980's have more profound objectives than just destroying everything. Typically, "bad guys" are perceived as heroes by those that follow them, and are doing the right thing from their perspective. As a many thousands of year old being Apocalypse should have had an objective that was right in principle, but unacceptable in execution. Instead we got "Insert generic bad guy here" So many character opportunities were missed out of uninspired convenience. Jean Grey, at this time a teenager, suddenly knew she was the Phoenix and how to control it. The Phoenix isn't controlled; it's released and should be a menace in its own right. If super powerful beings were to battle they should have told parallel stories of Apocalypse and the Phoenix and had them meet time lines. Also, as a side note, the fact the Quicksilver is Magneto's son was started but fizzled and never went anywhere. Could have been a great plot element there. Another opportunity missed.
Cameos that fell flat: Wolverine with a different backstory (remember we are on an alternate time line). And, Psylocke, who is one of the great characters in the comics, at least looked the part this time, but ended up a shallow one-dimensional character. She was presented as a main character, but nothing at all was told about her and was more of a set piece.
Probably more disappointing than the lack of story was the performance from the actors. X-Men typically has top rate actors that I like in other films, such as McAvoy, Fassbender, and Isaac. However, all of them just phoned it in this time. Jennifer Lawrence brought Katniss to the X-Men. Not sure if she phoned it in also, or if this is just her range.
If you thought Iron Man 3 and Avengers: Age of Ultron were special effects cop outs you should skip this one. If you are fans of the X-Men comics there really isn't anything to see here either. I gave this one 2 stars simply because the Quicksilver slo-mo scene was cool, but that's about it. If we want better movies we need to stop supporting bad ones with our dollars. I'm sure Apocalypse will make gargantuan sums, but I'm confident that it won't be analyzed in college literary classes. As the claimed last film of the X-Men series Apocalypse does not close on an epic finally, but more of a slow painful death.