Closing the loop

Rating: 7/10 (6 November 2016)

X-Men: Apocalypse is the third installment of the 'revival' trilogy which started with First Class and rather than a reboot is a look into the X-Men history in line with the fresh, more realistic, more dazzling look of superhero movies of recent years. Plot follows the rebirth of Apocalypse, the first ever mutant, from a buried tomb in Egypt. He comes to learn of mutants in the present he wakes up to (1983) and starts to recruit mutants to create a better world. The clash with Prof Xavier's mutants is inevitable and leads to a clash of ideologies. The film kept the comics settings during the Cold War and it was a fresh view to that time period in line with First Class and Days of Futures Past set in 1960s and 1970s respectively. Not as good the previous two but helps answer many questions from this trilogy and the previous one (from the 00s). There is a lot of reference to the previous films and if you have not seen those you only enjoy this one in a limited way. Unless you followed the trilogy and/or are into superheroes, the plot unfolds very slowly and references are sometimes implicit.