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Gaith said:Mild spoilers
I agree with the "good, not great" majority opinion. Great cast, fun characters, cool action... but there's a definite sense of wheel-spinning and plot point recycling, also. (Weapon X again, Stryker threatening the school again, Mystique shifting loyalties again, cage fighting again, Cerebro backfiring on Xavier again, forming the team again, Quicksilver single-handedly saving the day again, Cyclops' origin again, hints of Phoenix again...)
My biggest issue, though, was the weirdness of the post-1973 Magneto backstory. At the end of DoFP, with the cameras on him, he proclaimed a new day for mutants to reveal themselves, and to take up their rightful place as leaders of the world... only to abruptly retire to a humble, anonymous blue-collar life because he met K̶a̶y̶l̶a a beautiful brunette? And at the end of this movie, despite having killed a whole bunch more people, Xavier happily lets him go, rather than at the very least placing him on lifelong house arrest on the school's grounds?! Because we all know he's going to kill again; it's only a matter of time! And when he does, somebody should definitely sue the pants off the Professor.
I know nothing of the comics, but seems to me this movie should have been Magneto's (Genosha/Asteroid M/whatever) mutant utopia story, with maybe a few hints of Apocalypse as set-up for the next. I guess they could still do that story, and have Mags be the main villain, but it'd likely feel damned awkward, especially now that the X-Men are up and running again, unlike at the end of 1973, whereas Mags is just a dude in respectable civilian clothes. Indeed, the big Magneto ascendancy promised at the end of First Class has been pretty much ruined by Singer twice in a row now.
All that said, I did quite enjoy the movie, and would happily watch it again sometime. (Unlike, *cough*, BvS, *cough*.) I'm not sure what the path forward is, though: if they try to go cosmic for the next main X-Men film, it may look like a pale imitation of the MCU, which will have had two GotGs plus the Thors and first Infinity War. On the other hand, after six main Earthbound flicks, and a Big Bad as big and deadly as Apocalypse, more of the same could be just problematic. I'm far from giving up on the franchise, and look forward to seeing what's next, but it's pretty impossible to deny that the MCU has the biggest and best game in town.
My grade: B. (About as good as Civil War, which had a fresher story, but is hampered by the fact that it revolves around Bucky, the MCU's least interesting major character by far.)
Well, Gaith, I do agree for the most part, but more than recycling and wheel-spinning, having those elements back in in some way or form accomplishes, more or less intensely, what Bryan Singer said he wanted to do with this film, or else tie up every other film, and bringing elements like a cage fight, reminiscent of Wolverine's in "X-Men" or Cerebro 'breaking' out from Xavier's control does, or should do, exactly that. Nonetheless, I absolutely agree, it is, emotionally speaking, maybe the weakest after "X-Men: The Last Stand", which did, though, as bad as it is, have its moments. I liked "Apocalypse", yet it is the less emotionally strong (a thing I believe defines comic book films largely more than action-packed, visually-stunning effects and explosions; I may actually write an article in a thread about this), yet it does again have its moments: fun, simply not "X-Men 2", "X-Men: Days of Future Past" or "X-Men".