At least alright

Rating: 6/10 (20 June 2016)

After the amazing "X-Men: Days Of Future Past", we were all hyped about the next movie coming up featuring beloved villain Apocalypse. It was a tough act to follow, but it wouldn't have been that enjoyable either way. There are a lot of pros and cons, but the cons dominate here. What was weird about this movie was that it seems like Apocalypse didn't even do that much. I mean, he didn't talk a lot and he just sort of stood around a lot. We should have seen more of his origin and the exact point that he was created. He was older than Ancient Egypt. Also, why was this a prequel to the original movies? We already showed with "X-Men: First Class" that a good prequel could be made.
There's no point in placing this in the past. We even got another great movie taking place at this time which made more sense via time travel. Wolverine does in fact appear in this movie, but only briefly. Yeah, when you think about it, his presence is pretty pointless. It's like they were just trying to give him a brief cameo like Professor X in "X-Men Origins: Wolverine". The weirdest part has to be this idiotic move Apocalypse does. In one scene, he actually has access to all the world's nuclear weapons and then he throws them all in the sky. Why doesn't he just, I don't know, USE THEM to kill people?! I guess one could argue that he didn't want to kill everyone and just rule over them, but that makes no sense. It's later shown that he does want to rebuild the Earth from the ruins he'll create. Why not just use those missiles to do it? It would have been the easiest thing to do. All they had to say was that Havoc severed the ties with Apocalypse so he couldn't fulfill his mission.
There's one scene where the characters come out of watching "Return Of The Jedi" and remark that they're sure the third one (this) was the worst. Is that meant to be a shot at itself? The third X-Men movie was considered by many people to be the worst, but most everyone agrees now that "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" was the worst. "The Phantom Menace" was the fourth created, which again, could be a reference to the fourth X-Men movie. Ironically, this movie is now in between. I also saw "Up The Academy" listed there, which could be another injoke as that movie was discredited by the people at MAD Magazine how the first Wolverine movie was.
For all the flak I give this movie, it's still by no means really bad. It's great to see Quicksilver again and he is as entertaining as ever. Yeah, they do reuse a lot of jokes from his first appearance, but they still work pretty well. The scenes with Magneto are actually really well done. The best part in the whole movie is probably him seeing his daughter die and his reaction. These are really sincere scenes and they advance the story well. The visuals are really good in this. Still, it's too long and the last fight scene just seems to go on forever. Even the scene after the credits goes on forever! I do like the idea of them showing more of the characters and their fates. I say that while it's better than "Batman Vs. Superman", it's nowhere near as good as "Captain America: Civil War". It's fine for a single watch, but nothing you'd want to return to. **1/2