Film: X-Men: ApocalypseDirector: Bryan SingerCast: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Oscar Isaac, Olivia Munn, Sophie Turner, Nicholas Hoult, Evan Peters

What it's about

If you're paying attention, this one is about the supervillain in the title. Right at the start of the film, you see the first mutant En Sabah Nur being betrayed by his guards, but not before his Horsemen succeed in transferring his consciousness into a younger mutant, effectively ensuring his immortality.

Eons pass, the world has changed much in Apocalypse's absence. Cut to the 1980s, where Charles Xavier and Co are mentoring young mutants and Erik Lehnsherr is living in Poland in relative anonymity with his wife and daughter. In Germany, Raven aka Mystique manages to save Nightcrawler from a lifetime of cage fights.

And if you remember Moira, Charles's love interest from the first rebooted film in this series, she's witness to the resurrection (well, somewhat) of the villain of this film. Joining the X-Men this time around, are a younger Jean Grey, Scott Summers aka Cyclops and Ororo Monroe aka Storm. There are several other characters but let's not concern ourselves with them right now.

Just watch the film to know how Apocalypse is revived, how he finds and powers his Horsemen and proceeds to wreak havoc on the world and how the X-Men try to stop him.

What's hot

The return of a beloved rebooted franchise after quite a long hiatus. The promise of a supervillain who was quite feted in the comic series. The top-of-the-line effects. A stellar principal cast. Certain inside jokes. And most definitely... yeah, I guess I'm done.

What's not

The running time of this film. Two-and-a-half hours is a long time to spend in theatres these days. Especially, when you're the sort who sits right through the end of a Marvel feature only to watch a post-credits scene. But that apart, there's way too much happening. Between Jean and Scott's bonding over common fears, Raven's shape-shifting between Berlin and the US, Stryker's and Apocalypse's machinations, team-ups and betrayals and what-have-you, it's really difficult to keep up with all the action. Because blink and you'll miss stuff and that's a headache you can do without.

What to do

An unnecessarily convoluted though fairly decent film that tries to pack as much of everything as it possibly can, it ends up a great pav bhaji instead of being a great pasta. Both have their own merits, only one doesn't require pounding the living daylights out of your ingredients.

Rating: ***