Everything they've built......will FALL!!!

Rating: 6/10 (5 June 2016)

'X-Men: Apocalypse' is the 9th 'X-Men' film (Deadpool and The Wolverine included), and the 4th directed by Bryan Singer. As much as I wanted to love this movie, it still fell short of what it's capable of.
1. The story itself does come with intrigue as an ancient and the world's first mutant; 'Apocalypse' (Oscar Isaac), is awakened in 1983. He intends to cleanse the world by causing it's destruction with the help of his four powerful mutant horsemen: Storm (Alexandra Shipp), Psylocke (Olivia Munn), Angel (Ben Hardy) & Magneto (Michael Fassbender). Apocalypse is also out to possess the world's most powerful mind, that is Charles Xavier's (James McAvoy), hence the X- Men, lead by Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), must stand against a God and prevent worldwide destruction. If anything else, the film keeps you engaged enough to wonder how it will all end.
2. Character development is lacking, especially when it comes to Mystique. For all the cool action and acrobatic fighting this character does, it's completely abandoned in this film. Jennifer Lawrence doesn't seem to be invested in playing Mystique as she was before, which is a big let down. Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy are clearly the most dedicated, with the latter giving a more outstanding performance. The film features more mutant characters than the previous ones, and it's obvious that a proper balance wasn't found since we never really get a solid grasp of the new and younger mutants.
3. As for 'Apocalypse' himself, Oscar Isaac portrays him as a cold and menacing entity for the first third of the film, but it's not long until we realize how one-dimensional he is. The suit he wears is interesting enough, but his head and face was a failed attempt by the make-up department. For being the most powerful mutant, he barely puts up a strong enough fight against the X-Men as he is blasted and impaled to his death. As far as villains go, Apocalypse feels less threatening than Bolivar Trask (Days of Future Past) and even Ajax (Deadpool), when he shouldn't have been, which makes his involvement in this film even worse.
4. Nicolas Hoult (Beast) and Evan Peters (Quicksilver) also return, followed by a handful of newcomers. Younger versions of; Cyclops, Jean, Storm and Nightcrawler are introduced, but only to indicate their existence/involvement in (possible) future films. Hugh Jackman has a short segment in the film where he once again portrays the infamous 'Wolverine', except this time he's under control as 'Weapon X'. Jackman's participation in this was obviously a bridge towards his next and final 'Wolverine' film, as well as fan-service to entertain the audience with a little bloody action.
5. The action is only impressive to where we've seen it done before in the same franchise. 'Quicksilver' in particular has a similar sequence like he did in the previous film, where he rescues all the students as the X-Mansion is destroyed. There are too many sequences where it's CGI and not character driven. The images of cities and monuments being destroyed is impressive visually, but it goes on to an extent where you lose interest after a while. Things are not as chaotic as 'The Last Stand', but you would have hoped that the film-makers learned and not repeat past mistakes.
Bryan Singer does a competent job, but yet he fails to surpass himself, making this the weakest 'X-Men' film under his direction. I personally hold 'Days of Future Past' as the greatest 'X-Men' film thus far, so I'm still interested and have high hopes for this franchise moving forward.