3 Ups And 7 Downs From X-Men: Apocalypse

5. The Terrible Screenplay Can't Hide A Paper-Thin Plot

X-Men: Apocalypses screenplay is terrible. Its all forced exposition and random trailer lines that do nothing to shield that its plot is simply Bad guy enacts plan, good guys tries to stop him. Theres literally nothing else, with any other sub-plots quashed by the breadth of the ensemble. It doesnt even follow a proper three-act structure; we spend an hour meeting everyone, then jump straight into the final beat.

Contrivances abound. As I've already said, it's not as laughable a story as Batman V Superman, but certainly sits there with the dregs of the X-Men series.

Speaking of the series, there's a strange reliance on the events of First Class, used to power the relationships between all the returning characters to the point where key turns of faith are underpinned with hastily-edited montages of Matthew Vaughn's films. It's a good move to honour these character's on-screen history, but doing it so much really only highlights how little character development there is here. Which brings us to an even bigger problem...