X-Men: Apocalypse

Despite the relatively muted and mixed reception; for us X-Men Apocalypse is on its way to winning the 2016 superhero movie war.

The final piece in the best superhero franchise since Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, Apocalypse moves events to the 80's with the, now pretty much complete, X-Men team facing off against their fiercest adversary: the original mutant.

I've always lent more towards the X-Men than the Avengers in personal preference due to the slightly more graphic-novel (rather than comic book) approach: the politics, the focus on dialogue rather than action and the 'curse' of the powers rather than the heroic aspect. This brings all of that to a head with the brilliant introduction of the two missing pieces from the last prequels: Scott Summers (Cyclops) and Jean Grey (Phoenix) and also throws in a pretty bad-ass villain and classic good/bad/good story line for Magneto.

It continues 2016's 80's love in (there's a genius use of Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of These) and is Nightcrawler wearing a Thriller jacket in this?!) Every character gets a little bit of love; there's even a cameo, whisper it, for a certain be-clawed favourite and the plot comes to a logical head and legitimate ending (and Xavier finally loses his flowing locks.)

There are obviously a few flaws: as much as I love Oscar Isaac his Apocalypse get-up will draw mixed reactions. For me it's a sub-Thanos, OTT look which doesn't give Isaac enough to go on (I viewed the film with two friends who didn't even register that it was him until afterwards) plus, considering they change his height later in the movie, he comes over just a tad small! There's a little bit of a lack of danger in this film but that's solely due to the fact that all these characters have to survive to keep in touch with the original trilogy.

Despite those minor gripes though this is a triumph; keeping up the brilliance of the other prequels, moving swiftly and efficiently through proceedings. Not too long to be a bum ache-er but not too short either. It's lovely to see all these characters come together properly and this is a great ending to a wonderful franchise.

4 stars ****