X-Men: Apocalypse Reviews- 12 Early Reactions You Need To Know

6. Singer's Direction Is Messy

Again, having lots of elements doesn't seem to have helped Bryan Singer's story-telling problems, as he's forced to jump around a lot of sub-plots and can't quite build a cohesive flow to his narrative. The word "mess" seems to come up quite a bit in the reviews.

EW are amongst the most scathing on that front:

"But Apocalypse feels like a confused, kitchen-sink mess with a half dozen too many characters, a villain who amounts to a big blue nothing, and a narrative that€™s so choppy and poorly cut together that it feels like you€™re watching a flipbook instead of a movie."

And further, the same review says there's a fundamental issue with story flow:

"The other part of the problem is that Singer keeps cutting from subplot to subplot and setting to setting with such frequency that he seems hellbent on preventing the audience from getting involved with any one storyline or character."

Even the ostensibly positive review in The Independent says that there's a limit to mainstream audience appeal because of story density:

"One of the problems with the X-Men, at least for non-devotees, is the bewildering number of protagonists and interlinking plot-lines far more embroiled than those of even the longest-running Reg Grundy soap operas."

But that much isn't a problem: films can survive having lots of threads, as long as they're balanced properly. Here it just doesn't sound like they are.