Beginning with a scene in ancient Egypt we see En Sabah Nur/Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac) using celestial technology to increase his powers to ensure he and his four mutant aides continue to rule however a twist of fate results in him being buried during the ceremony. We then cut to 1983 where CIA agent Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne) is tracing the legend of Nur and sees his re-awakening where he begins his search for his new assistants, also known as the Four Horsemen and recruits Angel (Ben Hardy), Psylocke (Olivia Munn), Storm (Alexandra Shipp) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender).

In the meantime Professor Xavier (James McAvoy) is recruiting more students in his school for mutants with assistance from Raven (Jennifer Lawrence), Beast (Nicholas Hoult) and Havok (Lucas Till) which introduces us to Jean Gray (Sophie Turner), Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and Cyclops (Tye Sheridan). Apocalypse taps into Xaviers mind when he is using the Cerebro machine and so begins a battle for the fate of the planet as Apocalypse wants to destroy the world and build it again where he will rule as master and it is up to the new generation of X-Men to stop him.

There’s a lot of good stuff in the movie, the new x-men characters are brought in well with some decent back stories and I haven’t even mentioned Quicksilver (Evan Peters) yet who, if you thought his scene stealing moment in Days of Future Past was good then you’ll love his main moment in this movie as it is probably the best single scene in any of the X-men films so far and he seems perfect for a standalone movie. Magneto is given some superb development and it’s a great insight into the inner turmoil of the character and Beast finally get a little more fighting to do and shows that he’s not just the brainiac of the bunch.

Unfortunately, with such a large cast, some characters don’t get their due, and chief among the casualties are Psylocke and Angel who didn’t have the impact I expected. There’s been a lot of criticism towards Jennifer Lawrences acting but I think it’s as much a case of her character not being enough of a challenge as much as poor acting as Mystique is not a major player in this film. Also, Apocalypse looked and sounded great, he also showed some great moments of his power yet he felt over reliant on his horsemen and although his goal was clear it was a very long winded way of trying to achieve it.

It was nice to focus more on the mutant vs mutant battles rather than the human vs mutant tales of the first two films however given the extent of the seriousness of the situation i.e. the end of the world with huge loss of life, there was very little time given to showing anything from the human side and even McTaggert, who played such a bit role in the first to films, felt like she was added in to give Xavier a bit more depth and tie the story in with the extended universe rather than adding anything to the movie.

I liked First Class and was a big fan of Days of Future past so I was hopeful that Apocalypse would keep the standard of the X-men franchise high and for the most part it did however, despite some excellent action sequences, clever humour throughout and a good story line it just never quite reaches the same heights as the second movie but it is definitely well worth a watch for any fans of the franchise.

DJ Speaks Rating: 6 Out Of 10