X-Men: Apocalypse takes place directly after X-Men: Days of Future Past and continues the adventures of the X-Men during the 1970s. When a mutant who is believed to be the world's first and one of the most powerful of all time comes back to life, he plans on regaining power over the entire world. Known as Apocalypse, over the years this mutant's spirit has traveled throughout bodies and gained various powers that can lay destruction to just about everything. Apocalypse immediately decides to recruit four immensely powerful mutants, who he deems the Four Horseman, and he increases their powers, in his attempt to take back control of Earth. Professor X and Raven lead other young mutants, such as Cyclops and Jean Grey, and they do everything in their power to stop Apocalypse, Magneto, and their masterplan of destroying mankind. 
 

Although the movie is a good idea and definitely had lots of potential, the actual execution of the movie isn't the greatest. The beginning of the movie starts things off nicely and immediately makes mutants the stars, as well as introduce much younger versions of well-known mutants, like Cyclops and Storm. The middle of the movie progresses fairly well, and this part has a fair amount of adventurous action scenes and some more character development, as well as some scenes that showcase the pure might of the mutants and why the world has come to love them. However, the ending, especially the very end, is where things start to crumble. Although there's a good amount of built up suspense and intensity, the movie basically captures itself in a trap, due to the fact that it created a villain that's just too powerful for the other mutants, resulting in a dumb ending that doesn't make that much sense and completely disappoints in every which way possible. 

 Even though the ending somewhat ruins the entire thing, up until the final fifteen minutes or so, the characters on the screen were complimenting each other nicely, and there was a great blend of plot development, thought out dialogue, and exciting violence that brought the powers of the comic book characters to life. Quicksilver is back as one of the funniest characters in the movie, which helps to add a nice light touch to the otherwise fairly dark tone. Magneto's character is especially interesting in the movie, and the film does a good job of depicting what makes Magneto tick, as well as demonstrating why he's famous for being an anti-hero, instead of a do-good boy scout or an evil mastermind. 

 The visual effects of the movie are vividly outstanding and capture the science fiction-esque that the movie conjures all too well. These superb special effects live up to expectations and then some, and this is definitely an advantage that this movie has over the older X-Men movies.

Rotten Tomatoes gave the movie a poor 48%, but IMDb gave the movie a 7.1/10, which isn't spectacular but certainly is an improvement. However, a fairly high 87% of Google users liked the movie, which clearly demonstrates how the movie was more popular with fans and typical movie-goers than critics, as well as showcasing the wide range of scores that different reviewers gave the movie. 

With all of that said, X-Men Apocalypse isn't quite as enticing as X-Men: Days of Future Past or X-Men: First Class, but the movie furthers the franchise along and doesn't create an absolute flop that puts a bad taste in viewers' mouths. It isn't perfect, but it is worth watching for those who have already watched the other movies, but for those who haven't, this isn't the right place to start.