Most of the action takes place in 1983, a decade after most of the action in X-Men: Days of Future Past, which came out only two years earlier. The world at large has only recently discovered superpowered mutants, but it turns out that they predate civilization; they just became more common in the last century. One (Oscar Isaac) who would eventually go by "Apocalypse" had reigned as a god-king many times over, destroying nations when he saw fit, but an uprising in ancient Egypt resulted in him being buried and comatose for more than 5,000 years. It's not entirely clear what wakes him -- maybe a cosmic phenomenon or the mysticism of an inexplicable present cult -- but soon after, he decides the whole world is long overdue for a cleansing. No, he doesn't have halfway-noble reasons; he believes that the strong should rule. It doesn't take long for telepathic Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) to notice something's off, but while his school's students and staff are powerful, they haven't been training in combat for some time. They can barely be called X-Men. And the ensuing struggle is nothing to phone in.
Apocalypse has too many powers to enumerate in this space, but only a few clearly come into play herein. Probably his "base" power involves transferring his soul (they say "consciousness," but that can't be all) to another mutant's body, thereby adding that mutant's powers to his menu. You can imagine what he has in store for Xavier, and if the process weren't so inefficient, Apocalypse would win in no time. He can also enhance another mutant's powers, which he does particularly when selecting his four "Horsemen," who no longer bother with horses.
It should come as little surprise that Magneto (Michael Fassbender) gets tapped for a Horseman. Not only does the fugitive make a tough enemy; a personal tragedy of late has given him a new low in how he feels about humanity, particularly of the non-mutant variety. Why not a refresh? What's more surprising is that the other three Horsemen -- Storm (Alexandra Shipp), Angel (Ben Hardy), and Psylocke (Olivia Munn) -- are usually heroes in canon, and Apocalypse doesn't evidently coerce them.
On the other side of that coin, Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) is usually a villain, but after her actions in DoFP, mutants everywhere see her as a savior. She retains an antiheroic attitude but never opposes the X-Men in this outing. Xavier hopes to patch things up with her, and Beast (Nicholas Hoult) seems to want more than that.
If you're looking for new good guys, I'm afraid the best you'll get are younger versions of ones established in previous movies. We see the origin of Cyclops (Tye Sheridan), his enrollment at the Xavier Institute with help from brother Havok (Lucas Till), and his first interactions with future wife Jean Grey (Sophie Turner), both of them plagued by accidental destructiveness. Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee) re-debuts, this being a different timeline from X2: X-Men United. Personally, I always found Cyclops a bit dull, and Smit-McPhee's performance doesn't equal Alan Cumming's. At least the overused Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is reduced to a nonverbal one-scene wonder, appearing just long enough for a retelling of his escape from the facility that weaponized him. And like in DoFP, I'd say Quicksilver (Evan Peters) steals the show with humorously cavalier high-speed antics.
Yeah, I've been mentioning that immediate predecessor a lot. It also helps to know X-Men: First Class, and there are a few callbacks to the first entry or so. Don't sweat it if you haven't seen them or can't remember them well; catching up is still easier than with Endgame.
I'm not 100% certain why Apocalypse has had such a middling reception. Sure, it changes a few things from the comics, but what percentage of the viewership really cares about that? The potentially tiresome downer aspect of the X-Men franchise must not be the main problem, or Logan would have fared worse. Maybe our hearts simply aren't engaged enough. After all, the main villain is hard to relate to, and Magneto isn't at his most sympathetic. We see only so much oppression of mutants. The intellectual factors have been dialed back a bit as well.
If there's one thing this entry does better than most of the rest, it's avoiding the objectification of women. That was especially blatant in FC, which I otherwise dug. Of course, you may or may not opt to boycott Bryan Singer regardless.
Apocalypse likely falls short of the upper half of X-Men films that I've seen, but again, that's not saying much. It contains the key elements that drew me into the casual fandom nearly 20 years ago. I'm content to make it my finale over Logan, and from what I hear, X-Men: Dark Phoenix is right out.
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