[8.2/10] I am, like most folks, a fan of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy, and the way he uses the genre trappings in a gritty, semi-real setting to give Batman and his allies and enemies character stakes and social commentary. I’m also a big fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films, which employ some strong world-building and character-focused arcs for each protagonist that blend into great interpersonal dynamics whenever the disparate characters cross paths.
But I also really enjoy movies like X-Men: Apocalypse, which don’t follow either tack but still manage to be exciting, fun, and unique.

XM:A is not at all realistic. It is grandiose and full of wild, sometimes poorly-defined powers that get by on how cool they are, in isolation and in conjunction with one another. It’s a colorful movie, filled with diverse characters in crazy guises who use any number of crazy energy blasts or creative powers on one another. It is bonkers and comic book-y in that regard, and it’s a ton of fun.

But it’s also not really interested in world-building or character dynamics in the same way either. There’s a little of that, mostly in the form of echoes from the prior films, but the film is more interested in introducing new characters (well, kind of old characters, kind of new characters) throwing them into crazy situations, and letting the sparks fly.

That’s both a bug and a feature. To some degree, X-Men: Apocalypse is overstuffed. There’s a team of five bad guys, a team of five returning good guys, a trio of new good guys, and quick scenes and cameos from tons of other players in the franchise’s past, present, and future. That can leave the film feeling a little disjointed, with jumps around the world, visions of the distant beginning of the villain’s rise and portentous dreams of a terrible end. There is a lot going on here, and sometimes it’s difficult to keep it all straight.

Still, it also means that X-Men: Apocalypse feels nimble even as it gets a bit unwieldy in places. If you’re not enjoying one particular subplot or character, you can rest assured that the movie will zip on over to another that might be more your speed. In that sense, the movie keeps up its momentum, introducing characters on the fly, having them jump into the fray pretty immediately, and then eventually bringing everyone together, either as compatriots or antagonists, for the big finale. In that way, X-Men: Apocalypse feels like an entire season of a television show condensed down to one 2 ½ hour movie, with all the good that comes with that, but also the sense of story whiplash and packed-in feeling that comes with it too.

That’s pretty much the story of XM:A from a critical standpoint, where it does a number of interesting things and engages in solid storytelling, but tries to do so much of it that the results can seem glancing at times. Almost every character in the film has an arc, from the most prominent (Magneto finding the good in himself after tragedy…again, Mystique realizing she is an inspirational symbol to young mutants everywhere) to the brief (Jean and Cyclops being worried about their powers as a curse but learning to use them when the time is right) to the baffling (Professor X dealing with his mindwipe crush on Moira, Quicksilver waffling on whether to tell Magneto he’s his father).

None of these arcs are especially deep. The breakneck pace of the film sort of requires that everyone’s development be told in thumbnail sketches in character quirks. But everyone has something to do, a role to play in the narrative and some way to grow and change, that makes their presence seem like it has a purpose. While some of the mutants at the edge of the narrative (mostly the bad guy coterie) feel underserved, they can get by on cool looks and popcorn combat.

The best of these arcs are Magneto’s and Mystiques. While much of the plotting of XM:A feels slight, you just can’t put Michael Fassbender on screen and not feel the well of pain and anger and trauma he breathes into Magneto. It’s well-trodden ground for the character, but Fassbender nails it an elevates the material from the word go. By the same token, the notion of Mystique feeling like her stunt from the last film didn’t make humans like mutants anymore, just making them hide their prejudice, only to realize that regardless of the humans, it inspired a generation of young mutants, is pretty standard stuff. But it’s also a tidy little story, and Jennifer Lawrence sells the epiphany well.

Apocalypse himself gets something of the short shrift. Oscar Isaac is nigh-unrecognizable under all that prosthesis, and his prodigious talents are mostly used in service of functional but unremarkable big bad dialogue. Still, the production team does a good amount of the work in making him an imposing villain. The sound design on his voice, the disintegration powers he uses in creative ways, and even the somewhat ominous, regal bearing the demigod carries with him make Apocalypse a compelling enough, if not particularly well-rounded villain.

The production side of the film brings a great deal to the table all around. Again, this is a colorful film, with the final scene in particular a beautiful if sometimes dizzying cacophony of blasts and quakes and explosions. The film also gets oddly but impressively arty at times, with shots of a good guy and bad guy walking toward one another in the real world, bathed in flames and energy beams and other magical detritus, at the same time they’re confronting one another in another realm at the same time. There’s also another brilliant Quicksilver sequence, which uses the “Fry on 1,000 cups of coffee” vibe from *Futurama* to hilarious and inventive effect, with a kickin’ soundtrack to boot.

While X-Men Apocalypse is never going to be a critical favorite like Nolan’s bat-films, or have the sort of synergistic thrills and deep character treatment of the MCU movies, it works as a feature-length thrill ride. Some of it feels disposable and thin, but it makes up for that by being a full-on, committed bit of comic book grandiosity and weirdness. Sometimes its reach exceeds its grasp, but the film offers another flavor of superhero adventures on the silver screen, and I, for one, heartily enjoyed it.