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

5. The Story And Screenplay

Alex: Ive got quite a few complaints with all areas of the film, but as I alluded to in the actors entry, much of it can be traced back to the story that Singers trying to tell and the script thats been produced.

The screenplay is heavy on the exposition and full of trailer quotes (Apocalypse says a variance of his everything theyve built will fall and from the ashes of their world well build a better one line three times) and so fails at building up relationships that all of its emotional beats (Auschwitz, Charles and Magneto, Charles and Moira) have to be punctuated by flashbacks from First Class.

But going further back in the films development theres the story. Rather, there isnt really one; Apocalypses plot is very basic and the film doesnt attach much more to the narrative than that (the Wolverine appearance is just padding, after all).

This is why the characters are so underdeveloped and the actors have so little to play with, which is all rather odd from a series that typically always had multi-layed stories to tell.

Simon: Yeah, the details in the script aren't great. It's probably the biggest falling down point for lots of the film - particularly when Xavier and Apocalypse fight and trade T-shirt slogans. BUT the story is generally just as compelling as any of the other X-Men movies: in a narrative defined by superiority complexes, why wouldn't the next, right step be a God-like mutant attempting to take over.

That's a simple story with potentially massive shockwaves, and the smaller scale stories within it - of mutants struggling with power, personal romances, the ghosts of the past... They're all on point. I just wish they'd spent more time after the treatment stage and not relied so heavily on distraction techniques.