Review – X-Men: Apocalypse

X-Men: Apocalypse is either the third, sixth, or ninth installment of the X-Men franchise, depending on how you look at it.  Regardless of how or where you classify Apocalypse, it’s awesome.  It isn’t the masterpiece that was X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), but it is a bold, brash, epic film that is incredibly entertaining.

Apocalypse kicks off introducing us to the first mutant ever Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac), a mutant worshiped as a God in the dawn of man, who gets buried underground for thousands of years.  He resurfaces in the 1980’s, where he recruits his Four Horsemen, Storm (Alexandra Shipp), Angel (Ben Hardy), Psylocke (Olivia Munn), and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) to help him rule the earth once again.  It is then up to Professor X (James McAvoy) and his team of X-Men to stop Apocalypse.

Apocalypse brings us a ton of new X-Men, along with the same characters we have grown to know over the last two films, which isn’t as awesome as you’d expect.  I loved seeing all the new characters like Cyclops (Tye Sheridan), Jean Grey (Sophie Turner), Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee), Psylocke, and Storm.  They all looked perfect and they set up a great future for the franchise.  However, the lack of development for most of the characters makes them one note.  Director Bryan Singer struggles to make everyone captivating.  The movie is mainly focused on the stories of Magneto, Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), Professor X, and Apocalypse.  These stories are done well, especially Magneto’s backstory, which is truly heartbreaking and is elevated even more because of the brilliance of Fassbender.  But again, the rest of the characters in the film are all kind of just there to be there, minus Quicksilver (Evan Peters), who once again steals the show with his wit and awesome powers.

At an extreme two hours and twenty five minutes, the movie is a lot of build up.  The first hour and half focuses on Apocalypse building his army and the X-Men preparing.  Most of the build up is interesting, but some of it could have been taken out to make the movie a bit tighter.  However, regardless of what could have been taken out, the payoff is extraordinary.  The climax of the movie is everything I wanted and more.  It is as explosive and rousing of a scene I’ve seen all year.  I was in complete awe watching the final showdown, as I felt like I was six years old watching the classic animated series again.

X-Men: Days of Future Past is one of my all-time favorite comic book movies, so to expect the same quality for the film that followed was a bit of a stretch.  But, X-Men: Apocalypse did about as good of a job as I could have asked for.  Sure it’s flawed and little too big for its own good, but it is incredibly entertaining, with some good performances, explosive action sequences, and engaging stories.  The X-Men franchise is still holding strong and has an extremely bright future ahead of it.

MY RATING – 3/4

Did you see X-Men: Apocalypse?  What did you think?  Comment below or hit me up on Twitter @kevflix or on Facebook at Kevflix.