9 Ways X-Men: Apocalypse Is The Most Frustrating Comic Book Movie Of The Year
4. There's Too Much Unfunny Comic Relief
X-Men: Apocalypse carries a campier tone than Singer’s other X-Men outings, and while it thankfully never reaches Batman & Robin levels the whole thing is noticeably sillier. The costumes, set design and action are often garish and overblown, something that extends to the movie’s dumb sense of humour.
Whenever things get too intense or emotional, Singer tries to balance things out with a gag to lighten the mood. A couple of them – like Magneto’s perfectly timed f-bomb – work fine, but there're far too many cringey zingers. There’s a Return Of The Jedi joke that simultaneously knocks The Last Stand while trying to be self-deprecating about itself; it fails on both levels.
Cyclops makes a stupid wink wink gag about Wolverine; Nightcrawler is made the dorky joker of the group and Professor X’s embarrassing flirts with Moira will elicit more groans than chuckles.
Where Civil War managed to add jokes organically within scenes without drawing attention to itself, Apocalypse practically holds for applause after another weak gag is dropped.