Alex Vs Simon: 12 Steps To Decide If X-Men Apocalypse Actually Sucks

9. Characters

Alex: If youd never read an X-Men comic or seen one of the previous movies I dont know if youd be able to relate to a single character. Theyre so broadly drawn and have minimal development that theyre really nothing more than blank avatars for you to apply your pre-knowledge to them.

Because were dealing with a bigger ensemble than ever before (Days Of Future Past had more characters, but they were spread over two timelines, so it was more manageable), theres a very sloppy balancing act, with nobody given full time to develop; their one-note goals are introduced in one scene, then its paid off in a later one in the third act. Professor X is just fawning after Moira, Jean Grey fears her powers, Mystique cant handle being a hero; thats as deep as things go.

I rewatched X-Men 2 as a palate-cleanser after this and it was remarkable how much a better lock on the characters it had Nightcrawler, Cyclops, Mystique and many more all have much less screen-time, yet you know who they are and theyre much more involved in the story.

Simon: Considering the number of elements at play here, I think the balance between old characters and new is pretty great. Yes, there is a compromise on some of the new characters backstory, but you either want an arc-ending event or you want a collage of origin stories. They cannot coexist, which was always going to be something of an issue with the way Fox have chosen this commuter bus approach to adding characters.

Characters get on, others get off, but thanks to the lack of stand-alones like the MCU, there's not a great deal of space for depth. That doesn't mean there's no room for complexity, and I whole-heartedly reject any accusations of one-dimensional characters. They're fully formed, they're motivated and they form jigsaw parts of the whole.

We don't need to follow every tributary of a river in minute detail when the big river is the main story.