A superhero franchise that's lasted sixteen years without being cancelled or remade! Surely that's some kind of record.So X-Men: Apocalypse is either the third, sixth, or ninth film in the series depending on how you're counting and stars James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence returning for a third time while bringing in new cast such as Oscar Isaac, Sophie Turner and Tye Sheridan. The basic plot is that an ancient, powerful mutant known as En Sabah Nur has awoken in the 80s and wants to "cleanse the earth" of the weak and so the X-Men must stop him.
As a whole, I like the X-Men franchise; despite it's bumps I've always felt it's had it's own vibe and personality and is different enough from other comic book universes such as the MCU and the not-so-connected DC properties. X-Men: Apocalypse continues in this and although shares similarities with other movie plots still feels like an X-Men movie. The stories we witness in this film are some of the finest we've seen in the franchise. The two biggest characters we've been following for years of course are Professor X and Magneto and each of them are so well-developed and incredible characters you know exactly what they are feeling and why they are where they are. Magneto's arc in this film is a highlight and from one particular scene in a forest you are hooked on his story and understand why he's doing the things he is. Professor X is great as the leader and strong-minded force who keeps the X-Men together and he really has some great scenes, especially towards the end. Another story in this movie is of course the one of the titular character himself, Apocalypse; his backstory in Ancient Egypt alone was a thrilling and well executed event and when you really see what he can do in the 80s I found him to be the most powerful and best villain they've had in the franchise. Just his voice, and mannerisms are so dark and menacing you really feel like he is an unstoppable threat.
Apart from those three, other character highlights were the young Jean Grey, Cyclops and Nightcrawler who fit well into the story and I really enjoyed seeing them, and then of course Quicksilver returning from Days of Future Past doing much more in the movie including one of the best scenes of any superhero movie, beating that of his previous. Everyone else did OK but weren't really used as much; Jennifer Lawrence's Mystique doesn't do quite as much as she has done and never has her own 'action piece' as it were and then three of the horsemen, Psylocke, Angel and Storm each had one particular shot that was cool but mostly stood around until the climax where they still didn't have too much screen time.
Effects wise, all the powers and abilities looked fantastic. There was a lot of CGI and green-screen during the climactic battle and for me personally I thought that all looked just fine. There were one or two specific shots which weren't particularly good in my eyes but that was it.
Some problems I had with the movie was that, as I said, some characters didn't really have much screen time and/or didn't really do anything at all (looking at you Jubilee) and then another thing isn't really a problem as it is the ninth X-Men-related movie but X-Men: Apocalypse requires you to know and remember quite a bit of the past films and this universe in general, so it makes it almost inaccessible completely to the general movie-going audience and unless you've seen at least five of the other films a lot will go over your head and seem out of place. And as a final negative point there were two scenes in particular that pushed the 12A (PG-13) rating to it's limits which will be fine for a lot of people but I think some will be quite surprised at how dark they went.
Other than that X-Men: Apocalypse is a really powerful and thrilling superhero movie, and for me one of the best in the series, not quite beating First Class as my favorite.
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