X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) Review

So next on my list of X-Men films to watch was the end of the so called First Class trilogy Apocalypse and here is my review for it. The premise of the film sees the X-Men go up against the first ever mutant Apocalypse who has a group of mutants with him including Magneto. 

Main Character

This film struggles to really establish a main character here which I will talk more about in the review, but I have decided on a couple of them for the purpose of the review. Michael Fassbender plays Magneto once again and he acts rings around everybody else in this film. He has the emotion here, you really care about his character and feel sympathy for him, throughout this whole trilogy Magneto has been the most interesting character and this film he is given even more depth and it really makes him the character you attach to. James McAvoy is also back as Charles Xavier and he is good in the role, he continues his development from the previous film and it is nice to see him in the mentor role that we expect of him at this point. It is a bit of a shame though that he isn't actually in this film that much and feels like a bit of an afterthought at times. 

Supporting Characters

Evan Peters is back as Quicksilver and he is actually given more to do here. He was a real highlight from Days Of Future Past and he is just as great here and just adds a lot here and actually has a bit of a character arc which is nice to see. Sophie Turner as Jean Grey, Tye Sheridan as Cyclops and Kodi Smit-McPhee as Nightcrawler all do good jobs in their roles. Out of the new characters here they are the best and even though the film struggles to actually develop their characters they do their best with the role. Then we get to the rest of the cast, Oscar Issac plays Apocalypse and even though he is a great actor, I just didn't care about his character at all. You can tell he is trying, but he isn't given anything to work with, he is just a generic bad guy who wants to destroy the world and when you compare him to his comic book version it feels like a missed opportunity. I have liked Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique in the previous two films, but she is just annoying in this one. Her character has gone miles backwards from the previous film and it is just clear that she didn't want to sit in a make up chair which hurt her character in the end. Something similar happens with Nicholas Hoult as Beast here, I gave his character the benefit of the doubt in the previous film but here it also feels like he can't be bothered with the costume/makeup and again it hurts the character. But then there are those characters such as Storm, Angel and Psylocke who are just wasted and not given any time to shine. 

Story

Really the story isn't particularly interesting, but I am going to give it some positive thoughts due to how well it deals with Magnetos personal journey and story which is really interesting and makes you really care about him. But really the film is all over the place, it tries to introduce lots of new characters and it struggles to balance it, I mean Apocalypse doesn't do anything for over an hour which is pretty unacceptable. I mean then you get to his grand plan which is so boring and mundane that it doesn't bring you in and enough and cause you to truly get invested. Also there is a really jarring part of the film, I won't go into spoilers but it feels really out of place and literally like it is just here just to include a cameo that is good but not worth the effort. 

Script

The script is okay, there are some good dramatic dialogue and scenes here for sure, also there are a couple of nice bits of humour but not enough to make this film better. There aren't really any scenes of dialogue that stand out, and the way the film is written makes it feel like the film jumps all over the place and a bit hard to follow. 

Style

The style of the film is actually a big positive for me, the action scenes are great. They are over the top and exciting, they showcase the characters powers well and makes it feel really high scale that some of the other films don't. Also even though the story struggles, the film is actually paced quite well and the nearly 2 hours 30 mins runtime flies by quite quickly and actually makes this quite an easy watch.

Overall

Overall, I think this is a good X-Men film. It does many things right but also does many things wrong. If you want to watch a fun action film the Apocalypse might be worth a watch but if you aren't a fan of the X-Men, this isn't going to change your mind. 

Rating - 7/10