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

7. It Doesnt Fit In X-Movies

Alex: If Bryan Singer hadnt started the whole series (and ensured its future with Days Of Future Past), Id accuse him of not understanding what the X-Men movies are. Apocalypse just doesnt fit were twenty years on from First Class, yet nobodys changed (Havoc even has a kid brother), the interesting ideas left by DoFP are blatantly ignored (what happened to Mystique-Stryker?) and the Holocaust parallel, which was so wonderfully handled in X-Men and First Class, is made woefully blunt and literally destroyed. And dont even get me started in its squandering of the exciting time travel opportunity.

Theres a lot of X-Men comic stuff in here, which will no doubt help some people get past the other issues, but they dont fit the world of the film. It feels like Singer took every unused idea for the Merry Mutants (and some hed done before) and forced them into the film with a please some of the people, some of the time ethos.

Well it didnt work. When Jean Grey starts using the Phoenix Force just because its time to kill Apocalypse, I was genuinely sad.

Simon: I'll concede it's somewhat jarring in terms of a linear progression, which isn't really helped by the fact that nobody has aged a day in 20 years, BUT, I'll give credit to Bryan Singer for the intention. For him, this isn't just a chance to redo The Last Stand, or wipe out problems in the past, it's more like he's making an X-Men movies mood board.

It's effectively a Best Of Show, with some terribly erroneous absentees. Apocalypse may be ending the First Class arc and starting a New Mutants one, but it also feels like Singer shoe-horning in lots of things he wanted to explore before he leaves the director's chair. It's an impassioned but ultimately wayward intention.