Perhaps fratricide is just in the water these days. Even as both of the major political parties wrap up what have been among the nastiest, most divisive presidential primary campaigns in memory, pitched battles between ostensible allies also have become the go-to fodder for our cinematic superheroes.
First there was the self-explanatory Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Then it was Avenger versus Avenger in Captain America: Civil War. Now it's mutant versus mutant in X-Men: Apocalypse, opening May 27. And if this film is any gauge, it's a theme that's prone to seriously diminishing returns.
Set in 1983, the film at one point has new versions of Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee), Cyclops (Tree of Life's Tye Sheridan) and Jean Grey (Game of Thrones' Sophie Turner) exiting a showing of Return of the Jedi and quipping that the third installment in a series is always the weakest. It plays ostensibly as a joke about X-Men: The Last Stand, the only one of the now six X-Men movies not to be produced by Bryan Singer, who here returns to the director's chair for the fourth time in the series.
Alas, it could just as easily apply to Apocalypse itself, the third film since the series was "rebooted" with 2011's X-Men: First Class. Not only is it the weakest X-Men film to date (ignoring the two Wolverine spin-offs) but it vies with 2013's Jack the Giant Killer as worst film of Singer's lengthy, and mostly distinguished, directorial career.
The titular Apocalypse, played by the incomparable Oscar Isaac, is yet another in a long line of craggy-faced blue godlike dudes who want to rule the universe. The film begins with an impressive Ancient Egypt set-piece, in which Apocalypse's rise is forestalled by a pyramid conveniently equipped with a self-destruct function.
Reawakened in the here and now, he goes about assembling his "four horsemen" (duh), played by the series' uber-villain Magneto (Michael Fassbender) and three newcomers — a metallic-winged Angel (Ben Hardy); a mohawked Storm (Alexandra Shipp); and a psychic-sword-and-whip-bearing Psylocke (Olivia Munn). The two female horsewomen do manage to pass the Bechdel test in one scene, but this hardly compensates for the fact that, whatever other talents these actresses might have, their purpose in this film is solely to bare lots of flesh in cosplay outfits that also could double as bondage gear.
To be fair, the film's more veteran stars aren't given a whole lot to do either. Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence (Raven/Mystique) have six Academy Award nominations between them, but both are clearly just phoning it in here. And with a script that features such groaners as "You wanted a war plane…Let's go to war," one can hardly blame them. It's also hard to fathom how any film featuring four major characters who are literally blue (at least part of the time) could take itself so damn seriously, with a somber and dreary tone throughout.
The film does at least motion in the direction of whimsy at times, coming closest to succeeding in a scene featuring the return of Evan Peters as Quicksilver, this time even wearing period-appropriate Quicksilver shades. Alas, the scene so closely copies Quicksilver's introduction in X-Men: Days of Future Past — swapping out Jim Croce's "Time in a Bottle" for the Eurhythmics' "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" — it can't help but feel like a retread. At other points, the screenwriters engage in self-conscious attempts to invent catchphrases, which fall horribly flat. "Auf Wiedersehen" is no "Hasta la vista, baby."
Having kicked off the whole comic-book movie explosion way back in 2000, Singer and his X-people are now running on fumes, lacking the sort of fleshed-out characters with whom audiences could engage. It isn't even an entertaining spectacle of action, unless your idea of "action" is ridiculously attired figures standing around, emoting woodenly and waving their arms in a "whoosh" motion as CGI elements fly about them.
Even as the world itself appears to be coming to an end, X-Men: Apocalypse offers us very little reason to care. Which, come to think of it, might be yet one more thing it has in common with this year's presidential campaign.
This article appears in May 5-11, 2016.