I thought it was a pretty good film. Not a patch on
Days of Future Past, but otherwise a fairly worthy addition to the franchise and a decent enough conclusion to the First Class trilogy.
I think part of the criticism of the film stems from the fact that it satisfies neither hardcore contingent of the X-men fandom. To the fans of previous Fox X-men movies, it was too comic-booky and had a fairly cartoonish villain. To the X-men fans who love the more 'out-there' elements of the franchise that the Fox movies previously ignored...well, it was Fox X-men movie so they were kinda bound to hate it
Plus, you have to factor in the general bias in favor of the MCU which has almost overwhelmed the pop-cultural zeitgeist as far as superheroes go (and I say this as someone who's been a fan of the MCU right from Day 1, but who will never agree to the fact that every non-MCU movie sucks in comparision).
Not that
Apocalypse didn't have its flaws. I think it did suffer, to an extent, from too many subplots. Individually, the plots were great and worthy of further exploration...its just that jumbling them all together in one film kinda prevented them from being given the attention they deserved. I feel that Magneto's arc with the death of his family, and Quicksilver's arc of wanting to connect with Eric as father and son, really deserved a bit more attention. As did the notion of Mystique being a hero and the unwilling face of human-mutant peace and her struggles with that. The Scott and Jean relationship and their own development into X-men throughout the film could also have done with a bit more attention. We can throw the Xavier-Moira subplot in here too. Hell, Xavier's feeling of complacency, contrasted with Hank's desire to start the X-men, could also have done with some further exploration, since the whole point of the movie was to close the loop on the origin of the X-men as we know them.
In hindsight, as much as I LOVED the
X2 callbacks with the whole Weapon X sequence, maybe it was a detour that ultimately was to the detriment of the film, since it did take away some valuable time from the aforementioned plotlines.
What did work is how they brought the story that started with
First Class full circle, in terms of the Charles-Eric and Charles-Raven relationships, even the Eric-Raven relationship to a limited extent. And also the fact that they gave us a live-action version of the 90's X-men cartoon with the final battle!
I did a rewatch of the film recently and found that I liked it now more than I did back in the theatre...though maybe its just some nostalgia over the franchise ending soon that's giving me rose-tinted glasses.
But one scene genuienely gave me goosebumps when I re-watched it, and that's the final scene where it all falls into place. It starts with Charles and Eric, now friends again, albeit still standing by their contrasting philosophies. They repeat the iconic lines from the end of
X1, and then when Eric leaves, instead of calling Charles "Charles" or "old friend", he says "Good luck,
Professor". And that's when it hit me...McAvoy's Charles has
finally become the iconic Professor X from the comics, and from the original trilogy - bald head and suit and all. And then of course, we cut to the Danger Room, with the X-men in very comic-booky outfits, getting ready to fight a bunch of Sentinels...followed swiftly by the theme. Yup, the X-men have truly begun!