I really liked Apocalypse too. The critic I agreed with the most was Chris Stuckmann who gave the movie A-. He had some problems with it, but overall enjoyed it really much, as did I. A lot of the "problems" that I've seen critics have are not problems I share. Apocalypse was pretty much spot on to the Apocalypse I knew from the animated show. He is a bit over the top and he doesn't have any motivation other than wanting to see the strongest survive and the weak fall, so that was enough for me. I liked the new X-Men in their roles, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Nightcrawler, Storm, and I want more from them.
I remember Mr Sinister well from the animated show but I have to admit that I kinda confuse him with Apocalypse. They have different motives from what I recall, Apocalypse wanting to see a world in ashes with only the strong left, Sinister being obsessed with the Summers-family (from what I recall) but other than that, don't they have similar powers? Like a collection of many powers.
There will be spoilers in my post.
The problem is that the movie establishes NO motivation for Apocalypse. Why does he want to conquer everyone, because he is a deity? That doesn't explain why does he feel he needs to conquer everyone. I don't recall that being explored. All of us that watched the TV shows, and/or read some of the comics, know what his motivation is. But it goes deeper as we learned more about him. They retconned it yes in the comics, but considering Days Of Future Past where they show him at the end when he was younger, it would be reasoned they would maybe flashback to that. They could have spent 5 minutes to show he was rejected. I don't even think they established his backstory until after the original Fox TV series. But at least he made more sense. The average movie goer does not know this. So in this film, we get deity like bad guy with no way to relate to him. Further, his powers are already a cluster-bleep in the comics, and this movie continued that by adding more to it nearly.
Regarding Mr. Sinister and Apocalypse, my understanding is that Apocalypse created Mr. Sinister's powers. Mr. Sinister however hates Apocalypse as he realized his intentions, and also his rigid personality. As much as I don't know about Sinister, he seems to not be so black & white as Apocalypse. Sinister has primarily used the Summers family as pawns to take down Apocalypse, and that has created massive continuity issues/paradoxes. Therefore, we have my avatar and namesake, along with a Jean Grey clone.
Then if we look at the main characters. Magneto once again goes from "good" to "bad." Quicksilver could have stopped that whole Magneto mass destruction by speaking basically, but decided not to. Mystique is all of a sudden a main character, leader of the Xmen, and has managed two world threatening villains/events. All while having a usual power, but in no way comparable to many other mainline mutants that are put in frontline battle roles. Wolverine's appearance is a 10 minute or whatever murder-fest. Havoc is killed off as an afterthought, and his brother Cyclops, I think, didn't even acknowledge it? Xavier "unlocks" Grey for another go-round at the Dark Phoenix Saga. Because that worked out so well jamming it into an ensemble movie last time. Or that the storyline has caused a schism in the Marvel universe, both creators and fans.
Singer or whoever messed up the timeline with regard to aging. Simply put, 1st class was 60's, DOFP 70's, Apocalypse 80's. Mystique and Beast have basically aged because Jenny Lawrence and Holt are tired of the blue paint. So by them not being in their natural state, they aged I guess? Quicksilver still lives in his mom's basement, and they explain that away as a joke. Havoc didn't really age, but they killed him off, so that answered that question.
On the note of Lawrence, this has turned into Halle Berry part 2. An actress is in the first movie, wins an Oscar for a different role, and wants a bigger role and bigger pay for a character that may not justify it. In the case of Lawrence, she should have never had this important of a role with her character for now two films. Yet she dictated being not being blue, and basically running the last two films with her scenes. Berry tried the same garbage from what I read around X2, but was not as effective as Lawrence.
https://www.cinemablend.com/new/Main-Reason-Jennifer-Lawrence-May-Quit-Playing-Mystique-72649.htmlhttps://www.comicbookmovie.com/x-men/bryan-singer-thinks-jennifer-lawrences-mystique-should-get-a-solo-spin-off-a142203Guys, this is where you just need to see the movie to form your own opinion. I went in with low expectations, even though a few friends of mine told me it was a good film, and I came out enjoying the film. Like I said, it's not as good as X2 or DOFP, but it's a hell of a lot better than Origins and The Last Stand. There's a lot of emotional heft in this flick that pushes a few prominent characters story arc throughout this series.
Also, you won't help but smile to see what the X-Men are wearing at the very end of the film :-)
Emotions in this movie? Magneto? That's about it from what I recall. And that was a rehashing to re-motivate Magneto to do bad again.
Sure, this film is better Wolverine: Origins. At this point, this movie equals X3 in mediocrity, and failure overall on many fronts;
An actress that wants a bigger role/out of the series
=check.
A Dark Phoenix
=half check.
New characters that aren't really explained
=check.
Dead mutants, and moving on immediately
=check.
A director/producer that is gone (again)
=check.
Mass destruction, and return to mostly a status quo
=check.
Misrepresented powers/importance of characters
=check.
This movie is way far far away from X2 and DOFP. 1st Class and Xmen1 are also much better.
https://www.slashfilm.com/x-men-apocalypse-spoiler-review/3/All in all, sure, the film is fun. I enjoyed it while watching it, and I would see it again. It had a great amount of humor, and what was even better was the Star Wars joke. What is bad though is this film lives up to that joke. This film goes no where, and does more harm than good for the characters. It barely maintains continuity by weak afterthought measures. I believe the Lawrence influence, Singer leaving afterwards, and probably some studio meddling led to this. It just feels exactly like X3 all over again. Maybe that is too harsh. So maybe it is just a transitionary film. Somehow though, the gold standard MCU transition films have not got this level of heat critically.
Overall, it's a comic book movie, in no way can they live up to canon, and I'm clearly biased.
I still take it too seriously. *sigh*