Uneven but not bad

Rating: 6/10 (29 May 2016)

Ranking 'X Men: Apocalypse' alongside the other X Men films, it's for me third weakest. Better than 'Last Stand' and 'Origins' (though even they had merits), but not in the same ball park as 'X Men 2', 'First Class' and especially 'Days of Future Past' (also preferred the solid if yet-to-find-its-feet-feel first film) and only just slightly under 'The Wolverine.'
There is a lot to like about 'X Men: Apocalypse'. It looks great, being very slickly filmed and photographed, production design being grittily atmospheric yet audacious, smoothly edited and with effective costumes and make-up. The special effects are of extremely good quality too, the much applauded big Quicksilver scene being particularly note worthy, and there is not an overload or underuse of them. John Ottman makes a welcome return to the series and his score is one of the more memorable and fitting (with that for 'Days of Future Past' getting first prize for the most) of the series since 'X Men 2'. The script provokes thought and doesn't make the mistake of rambling, while the action is dynamically choreographed, thrilling and emotionally charged on the whole.
For effective scenes, highlights do have to be a suspenseful and very arresting opening sequence and particularly Quicksilver's super speed life-saving scene, which is one of the series' most jaw-dropping. The story starts off really well and is very diverting with anything with Magneto. There are some terrific performances here, James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender (whose character writing is the meatiest here) especially apply here and they make keep the story on point and from completely derailing. Sophie Turner shows off Jean Grey's conflicts and flaws very effectively and touchingly, while Evan Peters steals every scene as Quicksilver, Nicholas Hoult continues to be fine as Beast and Hugh Jackman makes a ferociously charismatic cameo.
Was mixed on Oscar Isaac (heavily made-up and unrecognisable) and Bryan Singer's direction. Actually Isaac's performance as villain Apocalypse himself is pretty decent and effectively menacing, but it's the clichéd and underwritten way in which Apocalypse is written that prevents Isaac from doing anything that special with the character that stops me from feeling more. People have said that Apocalypse here is more Ivan Ooze-clone than the character of the comic book, and it's easy to see why they would think that, this said Isaac does do a good enough job with what he had. Singer is at home in the style and the action, but when it comes to making the characters and story completely interesting and giving depth to them he isn't quite as confident as he was before, competent and stylistically classy but a bit bland.
'X Men: Apocalypse' suffers from being rather too overcrowded, with a fair bit going on and with lots of characters but effectiveness of executions varies wildly. Some good characterisation and great scenes, but a lack of constant dread and urgency and too many characters given short shrift, though nowhere near as badly as in 'Last Stand' and 'Origins'. The pacing is diverting at first but starts to drag once the plot gets more rambling and more bogged down by content. 'X Men: Apocalypse' includes comic relief and romance and they don't come off well, the comic relief is very goofy and at odds tonally with everything else and the romance is completely under-developed.
Jennifer Lawrence clearly looks bored too in a complete waste of Mystique, and Olivia Munn is underused and basically just eye-candy in a role that has little depth to her if at all.
In conclusion, uneven but still decent. 6/10 Bethany Cox