2016 Films: #10. X-Men: Apocalypse

June 16th in Johnson City, TN. This is the latest installment of the X-Men franchise after 2014's Days of Future Past essentially wiped the slate clean of all the content that took place in the X-Men films between 2000-2009 (that's three X-Men films and the the hideous X-Men Origins: Wolverine if you're keeping score at home) and the other sub-par Wolverine stand alone film that came out in 2013. Presently, the franchise canon is this film, the previously mentioned Days of Future Past and 2011's X-Men: First Class.

This film takes place in 1983, 10 years after the events in Days of Future Past. Professor X's School For Gifted Youngsters is thriving and old student Alex Summers brings his little brother Scott (spolier: it's Cyclops!) to the Professor when is mutation manifests. Magento has taken up a simple life as a factory worker in Poland, complete with wife and child (why he chose Poland, a Communist country that's not quite as bad as the Soviet Union but still oppressive is beyond me) despite the fact that he's been wanted by every law enforcement agency in the world for the last 10 years. In Egypt, a powerful mutant has awakened after several centuries of hibernation and he's discovered by plucky CIA agent Moira MacTaggert (who definitely has not aged 20 years!).

While Apocalypse makes his way to Europe and hooks up with Angel, Pslyocke and Storm, Magneto is discovered. When authorities attempt to take him in, his wife and daughter (who seemed a little older than 10) are tragically killed (the way they die is borderline ridiculous but I'll let it pass because the filmmakers didn't want to belabor the point), Magneto turns to the dark side and becomes Apocalypse's fourth horseman.

Cue ominous music.

Back at the X-Mansion, Scott takes a liking to star student Jean Grey and Raven shows up with Nightcrawler, Apocalypse and is crew show up at the mansion to kidnap Xavier (Apocalypse plans to use Professor X carry out his plan to tip the balance of power over to the mutants) and the ensuing battle, there's an explosion, Quicksilver arrives to save everyone, there's a tragic good guy death and Stryker shows up to capture the students left behind.

Jean, Scott and Kurt (Nightcrawler's real name) stow away on a helicopter to Alkali Lake, run into a soon to be named Wolverine (surprise!), who slaughters his way to freedom, and rescue everyone. While the X-Men are making their getaway, Apocalypse gets Magneto to mess with the Earth's magnetic field in order to cause a lot of destruction where several landmarks are destroyed. Again. This sets everything up for the big showdown in Egypt.

The big showdown goes to form; the bad guys have the good guys on the ropes, just when all seems lost, the good guys rally. Professor X also gets his signature "chrome dome" look during the final showdown as well. Mutants save the Earth again.

There's a reason this film received a 48% Rotten Tomatoes rating. It's not that good. In fact it's lousy. I was bored. The plot was redundant. Apocalypse is a blow hard who really just spouts Magento's rhetoric from the films that are no longer in the franchise canon. The plot and character development suffer for the sake of giving you mutants that weren't in the 1st series of films. Angel gets no development whatsoever. He's there because he was a horseman for Apocalypse in the comic books. Storm joins the X-Men in the end so she might get a backstory in the next film. I felt that Psylocke was wasted as a character. She had some cool powers and the character could've been expanded on but I felt that any showcase she got was because of her outfit (Olivia Munn doesn't act so much as she's just in action sequences).

It's a nice ensemble sure. But not very useful when fighting.

Everything that Nightcralwer did on screen was pretty much the same as what he did in X-Men 2. Nothing new from him. The scenes where Quicksilver uses his power are still exciting to watch but they're really just expanding the scene not giving us anything new or interesting (like the ham-handed way we get the information that Quicksilver is Magento's son). Plus the effects for his powers are probably expensive so his powers get limited screen time. That leaves us Jean Grey. Sophie Turner is beautiful, she plays Jean very well but it's pretty much the same Jean Grey as Famke Janssen but younger and her Phoenix powers manifest in one film instead of over two. You can also see where the next installment is going to go as well. More Jean Grey/Phoenix and more Wolverine. To be fair, I am not looking forward to the next installment.