The third movie in the X-men prequels is an excellent installment in the series that is definitely worth watching. Each action scene had me thrilled and amazed by the visual effects and the brutal super powered fighting. There are weak points in the movie but the strengths far outweigh them.
The biggest strong point in this movie are the visual effects throughout. Every power shown in the film looks well polished. Quicksilver's super speed is still shown in a brilliant and funny way just like the previous film, "X-men: Days of Future Past". Cyclops's heat vision appears very vicious and uncontrollably powerful. All the powers in this film shines with its own personal flare that always left me wanting to see longer fights.
There is also a lot of brutality in this film. People have their bodies contorted into balls, have their throats slit and people are burned alive all in the first 10 minutes of the film. There’s plenty more after that. The movie definitely pushes what they can do with a PG-13 rating. The effects and savagery helped to make the action scenes worth watching but what also helped was a lot of the emotion that as put in the fights. The actors', especially James McAvoy as Professor X, representation of their characters immersed me in the story and really made me feel like they were in danger throughout the movie. The final battle was the epitome of great, dramatic acting.
The costumes were phenomenal as well. Nightcrawler’s design makes him looks more beastly than Beast most of the time, but the actor’s portrayal of him shows him as a nice, sweet guy. It really pained me to see some of the stuff he was thrown into. Psylocke was someone whom I was excited to see in this film after seeing how great they nail her outfit in the trailers for this movie. It’s as if they just ripped her out of the X-men comics and put her in the movie. I’m glad they were able to make most of the characters look bad ass but now that leads me to one of the weak points in the movie: Apocalypse.
The titular antagonist is surely lacking in this film. I was more afraid of his henchmen, like Magneto, than him. His appearance in the majority of the movie made him look like a wise old shepherd rather than someone that can live up to his namesake, Apocalypse. His voice might annoy some people as it sounds like they’re trying too hard to make him sound intimidating but I didn’t mind it much. What I did mind was that he was shown as more of a mentor forcing the best out of his pupils. There could have made a great rivalry between Professor X and him on how they teach but it’s never set up that way. He never seemed like a threat alone because of his horsemen and everyone else in the movie outshines him.
A lot of new characters are introduced in this film. Nightcrawler, Jean Grey, Cyclops, Angel, Storm and Psylocke, but most of them don't see much development at all. The one I was most excited for, Psylocke, barely gets the screen time she deserves. In fact, a lot of the horsemen, other than Magneto, barely get any time for the audience to know more about them. We’re left in the dark why Storm, Angel and Psylocke would want to help kill every human in the world and just have to assume based on what little we know of them. Out of all the new characters we see introduced, Scott and Jean Grey are the only ones that change a bit in the film. Compared to the other films, this one lacks in character that could have made this movie an even greater work.
Even though X-men Apocalypse has those flaws I think the action, the acting and the visuals make up for it. I would definitely like to watch this movie again and I whole-heartedly recommend that you go see this.
