X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) ***

When X-Men movies first hit the silver screen the world was staggering from the comic book films of the late 1990's (I'm looking at you Batman and Robin and Spawn). The concept of adapting super heroes was just not as viable as it is today. The X-Men series is the odd franchise that has been rebooted, but is still tied to its former self more tightly with timeline swaps creating a convoluted mess that becomes more and more confusing with each additional movie.

X-Men: Apocalypse opens in Egypt where Apocalypse (Oscar Issacs) is being transferred into another body, merging his powers with the powers of his new host. A coup renders him buried hundreds of feet below the ground in perpetual hibernation, waiting for the day that he can be rejuvenated by the sun. Obviously he is released and begins the process of taking control of the world back from humans- he feels that he is their god. He recruits four mutants (the four horsemen), one of them being Magneto (Michael Fassbender) who, after experiencing another tragedy, now feels that humanity is evil and needs to be exterminated. This leads to a confrontation with Professor X (James McAvoy) and his team of X-Men.

Bryan Singer is the mastermind of the X-Men franchise, helming four of the installments. After continuous disaster porn offerings in comic book films it really isn't a surprise that a film with the sub title Apocalypse should also contain massive destruction. It doesn't seem quite as bad as other comic book films, but it's still there and is starting to wear thin on viewers. The film holds itself together, but it does have issues. There are pairings that don't really fire on all cylinders, leaving an awkward feeling in the film when it really wasn't intended. The problem is that these intermingle with moments in the film that really work so when you get going into the movie and become heavily invested the film hits the breaks with awkwardness and pulls the viewer right out of it. This is all secondary when you get to the tacked on scene that is just there so that we can have a gratuitous Hugh Jackman cameo. To sum up that part of the film, it was not needed at all and the film could have been fine with it cut from the final product. Discarding it would have made the film a tighter piece and better in the long run. But it gets you hyped for the next film, right?

X-Men: Apocalypse is probably the weakest of the current X-Men franchise. The film blatantly sets up Logan, but where does this series go from here? Is there a future with this franchise in this form or will another reboot be in order? Time will tell. All in all this is a respectable film if you can get past the issues it contains. A decent super hero film as long as you don't expect too much out of it.