Director Bryan Singer should be treading in familiar territory with X-Men: Apocalypse. Unfortunately, to many critics, his latest offering on the mutant franchise may be a bit too familiar with a heavy-hitting cast and delivering a story that was more X-Meh than X-Men.
The critics have spoken and even though the film has yet to screen in theaters, the forecast does not look good.
Mild spoilers ahead!
According to Forbes, the third time is not a charm for Singer as his third installment falls flat even as he attempted to poke fun at his predecessor's third film X-Men: The Last Stand.
Film review contributor, Scott Mendelson, described a scene in the film where a young Jean Grey and Scott Summers comment that "third films always stink" — in the movie, they are talking about Return of The Jedi in the Star Wars Trilogy. Unfortunately, Singer could have been talking about his own third X-Men movie.
"Bryan Singer’s would-be trilogy capper is a shocking miss. It is a lifeless and hollow shell of a picture, lacking exciting action, strong character interplay, or compelling storytelling," said Mendelson.
Alyda Wheat of People agreed with the observation. Saying that fault lies in trying too hard to reboot the reboot, and a plethora of teenage mutants that have the veteran cast members like Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique "[look] bored half the time."
While the new batch of teen X-Men look like a bumbling bunch of Scooby Gang kids, their other Marvel Universe heroes are getting better and deeper with each new Avengers film.
Even an unsurprising cameo from Hugh Jackman as Wolverine is unexciting and feels like it's been done before (because it has), according to Chris Nashawaty of Entertainment Weekly.
Instead of spending time on developing the stories of Magneto and Professor Xavier, Singer wastes time with cut scenes for way too many sub-plots than he could handle and a maniac villain who doesn't quite make it clear who he's supposed to rule over the earth after he's annihilated everything in it.
"It is a movie with way too much of everything except the things that should matter the most — novelty, creativity, and fun,” Nashawaty said.
Audiences will have to see if they agree with the critics' assessment of the film when it opens overseas on May 18 and in the U.S. on May 27.
