“X-Men: Apocalypse” was directed, produced and co-written by Bryan Singer, who had also done the first 2 “X-Men” films as well as 2014’s “X-Men: Days of Future Past”. This is the 8th film in the franchise and the 3rd in the new trilogy. The film sees James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Rose Bryne, Nicholas Hoult, Lucas Till, Evan Peters and Josh Helman all return to their respected roles from previous films. Joining the cast are Oscar Issacs, Sophia Turner, Tye Sheridan, Alexandra Shipp, Ben Hardy, Olivia Munn and Kodi Smit-McPhee. Hugh Jackman makes another cameo appearance as “Wolverine” in the Weapon X form.

Following the events and timeline change in “Days of Future Past”, Charles Xavier (McAvoy) and Hank McCoy (Hoult) are putting together the famous, Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. Alex Summers (Till) reunites with Charles and Hank and introduces them to his brother, Scott (Sheridan) who also a mutant. Meanwhile in Egypt, Moira McTaggert (Bryne) uncovers an ancient tomb which holds, Apocalypse (Issacs) an ancient mutant and believed by many to world’s first of his kind. Apocalypse awakens in 1983 and believes that humanity has lost their way and sets to cleanse this world. In Poland, Erik Lensher (Fassbender) has been living low key under an alias. However, his secret is out after he uses his power to save a fellow worker. Before he can be taken into custody, the police inadvertently kill his wife and daughter. In a fit of rage, Erik kills all of officers and then heads to the mill. There, he is met by Apocalypse and his 3 horsemen, Storm (Shipp), Psylocke (Munn) and ArchAngel (Hardy). Erik joins Apocalypse and becomes both the 4th Horsemen and the villainous Magneto. After traveling the world saving mutants, Raven (Lawrence) returns to Charles and informs them of Erik’s whereabouts. Hank and Raven are joined by Quicksilver (Peters), Nightcrawler (McPhee), Jean Grey (Turner) and Scott Summers who now goes by, Cyclops. Now, with Apocalypse and his 4 Horsemen out to destroy the world, Professor X must assemble his own team to fight and once again save the world.

“Apocalypse” is one the most iconic storylines in the X-Men series and one that had a big anticipation for the big screen. This film is mixed bag to say the least. After the huge success of “Days of Future Past”, this film failed to live up to the hype. Its not a bad film but then again wasn’t all that good either. Once again, McAvoy and Fassbender steal the show with phenomenal performances as the leads. Fassbender more so than McAvoy has a much better overall story arch. I’m not sure what happen with Jennifer Lawrence but as the trilogy went on her performance got weaker and weaker. She’s more Jennifer Lawrence than “Mystique”. Oscar Issacs was solid as the villain but his look and design were a bit comical and not really threatening as Apocalypse should be. Majority of this cast were good but the over use of CGI really bog the film down. This was a solid movie but we should’ve seen more from certain characters and storylines.

“Apocalypse” was solid movie but didn’t live up to the hype. The cast would return one last time in 2019 for the very disappointing “Dark Phoenix” before Fox was purchased by Disney. That being said, it would appear that now with the X-Men under the Marvel umbrella, a reboot is inevitable. Fox’s franchise would end with 2020’s “The New Mutants” which take place during the same storyline but after Disney took over, who knows what will happen with that film or the “Deadpool” series.