Muddled, long, and cliché.

Rating: 5/10 (3 June 2016)

'Apocalypse' is a very odd film. It's kind of the sequel to 'Days of Future Past' but it's set before the events that we see at the end of 'Future'. So, it's a sequel, prequel to 'Days'. At this point everything that is happening in the X-Men universe is very difficult to follow. There are so many different stories being told in separate times and places. This film tries to capture every single one that is happening around this time period. For some reason Magneto is like retired or sometime and has a family I guess. And Raven is running around saving other mutants inexplicably. After the film wastes about thirty minutes setting all these characters up it actually gets going. I can't understand why Singer felt it necessary to reintroduce these characters as if we had never seen them before. It takes so much time early on showing what every single person is doing that It's hard to connect with the story later on. We don't need to see what literally everyone is doing or how they are doing it.
Not only is that a waste of time but it robs the actual main characters of having any character. We don't need to see how Angel or Nightcrawler got where they are. We don't need to spend twenty minutes with Magneto's family that we all know is going to die. And with in thirty minutes, oh what do you know! They totally die for no reason.
Having a main character filled with rage over the death of two dimensional family members is so cliché at this point that I actually burst out laughing when they died. Like a guy double kills his wife and daughter with a bow and arrow without even looking. Why did this guy have his bow drawn in the first place? He was being attacked by birds but still had his bow perfectly aimed at them and just happened to let go of the arrow.
It was absolutely ridiculous (and hilarious). Of course this plot convince spurs Magneto to join Apocalypse's band of misfits but really? How many times has that been done before? And if that hadn't happened would he have not joined the bad guys? It seemed like a lot was hinging on that moment and it was freaking stupid.
And lets talk about Apocalypse. Not only was he as cliché a villain as you can get but his climatic fight scene was ridiculous. We literally watch him decapitate people with sand but once we he is fighting the X-Men he just kind of tosses them around. How can I feel threatened by a villain that is this atrocious? He's a big deal in the comics but he amounts to zippy zap on screen. He gets beat up a lot and does nothing about it.
But he'll turn around and annihilate an entire city within seconds of stretching out his hand. Granted these scenes where pretty cool though. That's really the only thing that carried this film. The action sequences. Everything in between them is rubbish but when the action hits, it hits big and hard.
And it's elevated by superb performances from McAvoy, Isaac, and Fassbender. Fassbender in particular (Magneto). The scene in Auschwitz is arguably the best sequence in the film thanks to his performance. You really feel his pain and rage as he tears everything around him apart, screaming at the air all the while. It was the only powerful thing that the film had to offer.
If anything, I was thoroughly entertained while watching this. There was three or four excellent sequences that blew me away. One including Quicksilver that even up staged 'Future Past's scene. But aside from the technical aspect of the film and some great scenes there isn't much here. The characters a flat, the plot convoluted, and the story bloated with far more personalities than the film could handle.