Apocalypse is upon us this memorial day weekend but is it worth the 144 minute run time despite the hefty box office competition and the low reviews? X Men Apocalypse picks up a decade after the events of Days of Future Past, with the now up and running Xavier School filled with mutants of all kinds. After the short opening explaining how Apocalypse, also known as En Sabah Nur, came to be, the beginning half of the movie becomes a revolving door of characters rebuilding relationships while Apocalypse seeks the strongest mutants to use as his legendary four horsemen. Erik, or Magneto, has gone into a life of hiding after his failed assassination of the President on the White House lawn, his intervention in an accident of a fellow factory worker exposes his mutant power and effectively ends his new life and alter ego through a series of tragic events. To be frank, Apocalypse has not had the best reception by critics, and is actually the lowest scoring film in the franchise just sitting above the incredibly awful X Men Origins: Wolverine. The beginning has plenty of cool effects but its gets a bit boring watching the un-challenged, Apocalypse, displaying his all mighty power over and over again. While a relatively flat villain, (which is a shame considering his history in the X-men verse), as well as some moments of "eye-rolling," dialogue, the movies still a fun summer blockbuster that he franchise has become known for. The younger versions of famous characters like Storm, Jean Grey, Cyclops and Nightcrawler were an honest treat and didn't get nearly enough screen time. (There was a whole scene that sounded quite fun and was teased for months but didn't make the final cut.) The same goes for the four horsemen. While Angel is significantly more fun than the previous version in X Men: The Last Stand, Psylocke and Storm both suffered from the "too many characters to have actual growth," phenomenon that seems to his these films. A shame because X Men is usually pretty good at juggling characters but it's understandable that you can't make a 3 hour film. Hopefully all the cut footage will find it's way to the directors cut when we see that possibly towards the end of the year. Another issue that comes with anticipating one big show off is most of the interesting scenes were shown throughout the multiple trailers for the film. Once the fight began, you could kind of guess what you'd see next. A surprising cameo ties nicely into the original franchise as a sort of easter egg, with the opportunity to once again create a new story line. That, coupled with the extremely exciting end credit scene featuring a key character in the Apocalypse story line (click for spoilers) may also mean that's not the end for him. As far as the future, things sound to be up in the air. With talks of a Phenoix Saga film, an X-Force Spin off, and the final Wolverine, it certainly looks like we're closing the door on this new trilogy and will hopefully see the young cast again in the future. Apocalypse is in no means as poor as the reviews make it sound but its certainly below its predecessors. The characters, while limited, as still fun. The special effects are amazing and whether a fan of the older films of news, James Macavoy and Michael Fassbender provide for some emotional moments just like Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan did so perfectly before them. Whatever happens next, Bryan Singer still manager to fit this film into the complicated puzzle for the X Men franchise and it's certainly worth a look.
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