In 2000, X-Men was released into a world that (at the time) was underpopulated by superhero movies. Over the years, there have been many sequels, prequels, spin-offs, and prequel-sequel hybrids. The most recent outing in the X-Men franchise is Apocalypse, which is a sequel in the “new generation prequel” of X-Men films starring the younger X-Men.

This movie consists of a huge cast, starring James McAvoy as Professor X, Michael Fassbender as Magneto, Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique, Nicholas Hoult as Beast, Oscar Isaac as Apocalypse, Rose Byrne as Moira, Evan Peters as Quicksilver, Josh Helman as Stryker, Sophie Turner as Jean Grey, Tye Sheridan as Cyclops, Lucas Till as Havoc, Kodi Smit-McPhee as Nightcrawler, Ben Hardy as Angel, Alexandra Shipp as Storm, and partially Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. This being a superhero movie in 2016, it doesn’t become surprising that the cast is so large.

*heavy spoiler warning ahead*

Apocalypse picks up 10 years after the events of the prequel-sequel hybrid, X-Men: Days of Future Past. Since the public discovery of mutants, the X-Men must go into partial hiding as humans, and there are now many clans that believe in worshiping mutants. Especially, the supposed first mutant, En Sabah Nur also known as Apocalypse. Through an act of prayer in the correct circumstances, Apocalypse (who has been “sleeping” for millions of years) awakens into the current world. Magneto (Erik) has now married and birthed a girl. After he saves a man’s life, the public becomes suspicious of him and his evil powers. In a wild turn of events, a cop accidentally kills his wife and daughter!

Apocalypse takes Magneto’s pain and anger for advantage and recruits him as one of his four horseman (Magneto, Angel, Storm, and Psylocke). Apocalypse’ goal is to destroy the human world and build a better one consisting only of powerful mutants. He sees all mutants as his children as he is the almighty first mutant. But the maximal power commences when Apocalypse “connects” with Professor X and can access others minds.

For anyone who watched Days of Future Past, no doubt you remember the Quicksilver Scene that was arguably the best in the movie. Well, the did another Quicksilver scene in this movie, where he is frantically saving everyone from an explosion at Xavier’s School, synced to some fast paced 80s music. Once again, it may have been my favourite scene in the entire film.

Considering that while this movie was made by Fox, it is still a Marvel film, so lets talk Marvel Goodies. Stan Lee had a cameo where he stood by terrified as Apocalypse released missiles upon the world but for the first time featured his wife, Joan Lee! The end credit scene showed government executives entering the Alkali Lake facility, also known as the home of Weapon X. For those of you who are unaware, Weapon X is an organization that creates weapons from mutants and humans (i.e. Deadpool and Wolverine). But the main point of the end credit scene is showing that those government officials were actually from Essex Corp. which teases the villain Mr. Sinister.

Despite being almost 2 and a half hours long, I never once felt as if it was being dragged out. With the plethora of characters that this movie features, they almost didn’t have enough time to focus on all of them!

I must say, you really need to see the other X-Men films to understand this one though. It is all related. The X-Men universe has now been split into a couple different timelines, which can sometimes be hard to follow. You could recall an event happening in the past, just to have another movie ignore that event’s existence. This does not however ruin the series at all, just may occasionally cause confusion.

I truly think that X-Men: Apocalypse is one of, if not, my favourite X-Men movie ever! I know some may not agree, but everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and with so many movies to choose from, there can be many favourites!

As always, thanks for reading, and enjoy!