9 Ways X-Men: Apocalypse Is The Most Frustrating Comic Book Movie Of The Year
3. There Are Too Many Characters And Subplots
Fans were worried from the beginning that Batman V Superman was overloading itself with too many characters and subplots, and they were ultimately correct; what should have been a straightforward story wasted time on needless tangents like lazy teases for the Justice League.
Surprisingly this an even bigger issue with Apocalypse. It's positively crammed with characters and subplots, and the poor movie can’t cope with them all. It struggles to balance the old characters with the new, and it’s easy to forget certain people are even there.
Characters like Beast, Psylocke, Storm and Angel have little of consequence to do, Jubilee may as well not be there and Quicksilver is included for an admittedly fun scene but his connection to Magneto isn’t paid off. Magneto’s family subplot works – just about - because of Fassbender’s commitment, but it’s obvious how it’s going to end and ultimately feels like cheap manipulation.
The script badly needed to be streamlined before production, because there are shades of a great X-Men adventure buried under all the nonsense.