Bryan Singer, in a way, put forth the re-imagining of the superhero movie going saga back in 2000 when the first X-Men clawed and hammered its way to box office glory. Before that, the superhero movies you would be seeing are ones that aren't highly memorable (do you remember Blankman? .. didn't think so.) Obviously we had the the original Batman in the late 80s and the awful sequels (minus Returns) that followed. But it wasn't until the turn of the millennium that we saw some truly robust spandex-wearing lads defend the world from total destruction.

And 16 years later it feels like nothing has changed.

When I say that X-Men redefined the superhero genre I’m not making that up, if it weren't for these mutants succeeding when they did, the genre might have turned out differently. Spider-Man might not have happened or the Hulk (although I think we can all forget that one). Not all superhero movies are good, but for every Fantastic Four at least we have The Dark Knight trilogy to help us forget those terrible movies even existed. And X-Men helped pave the way for those movies to be successful.

I digress.

Here I present, X-Men: Apocalypse a summer blockbuster that has all the correct ingredients (like big explosions, CGI destruction and ultra-smooth looking violence) but lacks the substance that equated its predecessors (specifically First Class and Days Of Future Past) to be above average. So if you think that we had reason to expect better, you’re probably right. A formula that once seemed so correct and timely 16 years ago doesn’t feel that way today.

So for all those that stuck around for the end credits scene after Days of Future Past two years ago, understand the big baddie this time around is Apocalypse - the world's first mutant who ruled some thousand years ago in Ancient Egypt. And this is where Singer’s film gets the ball rolling, with a slew of gold tipped pyramids, a good chant of human sacrificing and the feeling of something bad about to happen. Apocalypse, who is a cross between a blue Frankenstein and an older-depressed-smurf (and looks nothing like the great actor trapped behind the makeup Oscar Isaac who can’t be blamed for his laughable appearance), attempts to transfer his mind and strong mutant abilities into an empty vessel (a human body) when the plan gets foiled by a rag-tag team of rebels and is basically put into a deep coma until he is aroused circa 1983.

This, of course, is now where we are taken to the Reagan era, a time when Cold War tensions were high and the ever growing population of mutants seemed to leave folks on edge. At first we are quickly reminded of the events which unfolded in the previous installment and Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) is now regarded highly for her heroics and is seen as a poster child for the revolution (does that sound very familiar?)

The first third of the film is spent on introductions to characters you may know, and some you won’t. Tye Sheridan's laser eyed Cyclops, Sophie Turner’s mindreading Jean Grey, Kodi Smit-McPhee’s morph bending Nightcrawler, and Oliva Munn’s purple lasso wielding Psylocke. And much like Civil War, we are forced to choose a side, Team Xavier vs Team Apocalypse. For a while I was very adamant about the bad guys, as this time Magneto (Michael Fassbender - who is one of the movie’s salvation's) get’s a heartbreaking back story that you feel his pain and anguish - the rest of the bad guys all seemed interesting - like the metal winged mercenary named Angel (Ben Hardy), the weather controlling Storm (Alexandria Shipp) and Psylocke - but I just never cared about any of them. As for the good guys, Mystique is forced to come to terms with accepting herself as the way mutants see her and not society. Beast (Nicholas Hoult) really adds nothing to the movie other than his by contractual obligations to appear in character. And Wolverine shows up for a quick beat-down about midway through as to kind of remind us that, yes, he is still in the X-Men universe. Part of me was sitting in the theater desperately wanting Deadpool to show up for a fun fourth wall break.

I think you get the jist, Apocalypse is the biggest threat this group has ever seen .. blah blah blah.. wants to destroy the world .. yadda yadda yadda. Charles Xavier, (James McAvoy) who is starting to look more and more like Patrick Stewart everyday, says things like “I’ve never felt power like this before” and I just wanted to laugh.

The main issue with the film is that the titular Apocalypse just wasn't interesting in the slightest, he not only lacked the depth that made Magneto so compelling for five movies, he is just not a fun person to look at. I understand the need to to create the appearance of a monster, but with millions upon millions put into this project I would think something better could have been obtained.

Singer also diverts much of our attention to countless subplots that never go anywhere, it almost felt like I was being sabotaged to not get to connected to certain characters. Unlike First Class and Future Past where the direction had a clear focus and was inventive in the way our heroes saved the world, here it just felt like a choppy routine superhero movie that never elevates in the way it wants to. At times it becomes clustered with too many characters and a runtime that could have easily been trimmed by 20 mins.

The film is not a total bust, as I said earlier Michael Fassbender is just so damn good as Magneto (and in everything he does) that I can almost forgive the lines he was given to say by a script that needed some work. I don’t want to reveal his subplot (which also is very limited in background) but it’s one of the highlights of the movie. As opposed to Jennifer Lawrence, who, for the first time in her career, looked like she was bored making this movie. Maybe all those three movie deals have her feeling a little depleted.

And of course Evan Peter’s Quicksilver, like before, has the best scene in the entire film when he shows up for another slow-motion montage set to the period appropriate “Sweet Dreams” by Eurythmics. This is a character that needs to be tapped into more, and deserves his own movie among the arch of superheroes.

After walking out initially I felt like I enjoyed Apocalypse more than I’m writing about it now, but then I quickly realized that it didn't have the same lasting effect that Days of Future Past or First Class had. In this day and age we, as an audience, are very smart and know the typical cliches that come with superhero fare, so now we have to ask the respective studios to heighten their games because it’s easy for us to tell the difference between something excellent (Guardians of the Galaxy) and something not (Batman V. Superman). Apocalypse isn’t a terrible film, it at least has the ambition to be something great, but Singer’s relentless ambition is what, unfortunately, boggles down the final product: C+.