Saw the movie at long last today and, without spoiling anything just yet, I can say without a doubt I liked it. There were a lot of nods to the comics, there were some emotional moments, (most of) the fights were awesome, and the teaser at the end... holy crap. My really big complaint is that the BBEG, for all he calls himself Apocalypse, just didn't come off nearly as threatening as his Horsemen. He hammed it up a bit, killed some humans, and did some other stuff, but for the most part... can you say Large Ham alert?

SPOILERS BELOW

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Yeah, so, the final battle felt less than coherent and more a big jumble of "Look at all the carnage and destruction we can cause! Eat it, Michael Bay!" Psylocke was less than intimidating as an opponent, Storm just kind of hung out on the sidelines and watched until it was time to deliver the killing blow to Apocalypse, Angel was taken out like a chump, and Magneto was once again won over by the power of friendship. It was somewhat implied that Apocalypse was mind-controlling his Horsemen into working for him, but at other points it was insinuated that they were helping him destroy the world just for shiggles. Which... considering the ending with all of them turning on him, just comes across as kind of crappy writing. After First Class and Days of Futures Past I expected better. :/ And for all the powers the dude claims to have, his main ones seem to be teleporting and... sand manipulation. Come on! He could transform his limbs into weapons! He could change his size! He could do all sorts of cool stuff that we only saw him utilize once! He's a freaking technopath and we saw him use that ability all of one time to play catch-up on world history. What?

Sure, Apocalypse's plan to transfer his mind into Xavier's so he could control everybody on the planet is scary on paper, but in practice, you know it's not gonna happen. Professor X simply won't stay dead (Hi, X3, remember how you got retconned?) because he's too important to the movie franchise. The comics' format of killing everyone off every few years just doesn't work when translated to the big screen, so the tension just... wasn't there.

Killing off Havoc, on the other hand, unfortunately just didn't have the emotional punch I felt it should have. We got to know his character in First Class, but his sudden death here just lacked the oomph it deserved. I loved Havoc, but I didn't really feel sad when he died, more annoyed. "That's it?" was pretty much my entire reaction. Boo.

Funnily enough, the death that impacted me the most in the film? Magneto's daughter. I actually teared up a little there, and I barely even knew the character. Fassbender's acting was absolutely perfect in this scene.

Quicksilver, by the way, was awesome. They did an overly-long reuse of his slow-time running joke from the Futures Past but the guy later went on to punch the crap out of Apocalypse, which was pretty awesome. Gold star.

I'm disappointed we didn't get to see more than a brief manifestation of Jean's Phoenix Force powers, but eh. That can always be saved for a sequel (and hopefully a better one than X3).

And yet, even with all these complaints, I enjoyed it, I truly did. Despite the limited time for character development (a lot of time was dedicated to fight scenes and Quicksilver doing his thing), I think the movie did a good job developing in broad strokes a sense for each of the future X-Men's characters (though Jean could have used a bit more love, IMO). Hopefully we'll get a more nuanced, in-depth look at them in the next movie, though. They could use some love.

The nods to the comics were, of course, always lovely. I especially liked how Magneto's power got ramped up so he could control the polarity of the entire Earth—it was easy to see why that power of his got retconned. Seeing all the debris swirling around him was a truly stunning bit of cinematography. And Jubilee was in the movie! Sure, she was basically a side character, but seeing one of the main characters from that old animated cartoon I grew up with come to life on the big screen was a real treat. I seriously hope we get to see more of her in the future, because she deserves it.


OKAY, BUT FORGET ABOUT ALL THAT, CAN WE NOW TALK ABOUT THE TEASER ENDING?!?

For those of you not familiar with X-Men lore, the name on the briefcase? Essex? That has to be a reference to Nathaniel Essex, a.k.a. Mister Sinister, also known as one of the X-Men's scariest nemeses as well as the guy responsible for X-23's (Wolverine's female clone) and Cable's creation. In the comics the guy got his mutant powers from Apocalypse, but I don't think that will be the case here for obvious reasons. Either way, it's gonna be interesting to see Sinister finally make an appearance. I think that teaser ending has me more hyped than the actual movie. :D

And now it's time to petition for a fully-fledged Deadpool/X-Men crossover! Do it, Fox, do it!

Final verdict: Not the best X-Men movie out there, but definitely not the worst by a long shot. I would not object to seeing it again in theaters and I can't wait for it to come out on DVD.

/end rant