X-Men: Apocalypse

There’s a snarky in-joke in X-Men: Apocalypse that ends up backfiring about as spectacularly as a snarky in-joke can. Taking advantage of the story’s 1983 timeframe, director Bryan Singer and screenwriter Simon Kinberg have a group of the mutant superheroes exit a theater showing Return of the Jedi, where Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) notes, “The third one’s always the worst.” It’s likely a dig at the generally reviled X-Men: The Last Stand as the wrap-up of the Singer-launched original X-Men trilogy, and maybe even a little knowing self-deprecation as this incarnation of the comic-book team hits its own third go-round. Yet it comes in a movie with no idea of how not to perpetuate that truism.

It’s hard to remember that 2000’s X-Men was in its way a pioneering movie, pre-dating Sam Raimi’s Spider-man series, Christopher Nolan’s Batman triology and the now-ubiquitous Marvel Cinematic Universe in establishing that there was an audience hungry for comic-book adventures. But franchises inevitably face the dangerous question of, “Why should this story continue, other than because we would leave money on the table by not continuing?” All too often, the response is that it can be made bigger. It can be made faster. It can be made just plain more.

X-Men: Apocalypse’s version of bigger-faster-more means that our mutant protagonists will need to save humanity from a villain who wants to destroy everything. You know, just everything – but especially bridges and recognizable world landmarks. That villain is En Sabah Nur (Oscar Isaac), an ancient Egyptian quasi-god who awakens from a centuries-long slumber ready to eradicate pitiful, primitive humanity from the planet. He’s got his traditional “four horsemen” as personal bodyguards and pavers of the way for apocalypse: Angel (Ben Hardy), Psylocke (Olivia Munn), Storm (Alexandra Shipp) and even good old Magneto (Michael Fassbender), whose latest personal tragedy has refreshed his rage. Standing against them are Professor Xavier (James McAvoy), Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), Beast (Nicholas Hoult) and newer recruits including the aforementioned Jean Grey, Quicksilver (Evan Peters), Cyclops (Tye Sheridan) and Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee). And let the melee begin.

X-Men: Apocalypse delivers a slew of three-point-stance hero poses and “who would win a fight between… ” moments, as Singer slings his characters around the CGI battlefields with the practiced ease of someone who knows which one-liners and set-pieces will play well to his audience.

There is, however, almost nothing new to see here, and almost not even the pretense that there’s anything new to see here. Once again, as has been the case for more than a decade in this series, the central conflict is really between the worldviews of Xavier and Magneto regarding mutants interacting with the human world; their relationship has become an infinitely reset-able cycle of “hello, old friend”/attempts to murder one another/“goodbye, old friend.”

By the time X-Men: Apocalypse trots out a cameo appearance of a familiar character – spoiled in the marketing campaign – it has become painfully obvious this franchise is running on fumes. Its allegory for civil-rights battles by a feared minority has become just a talking point, and remains the only idea these movies are interested in exploring. We get the point that “the third one’s always the worst” largely because everyone involved is simply going through the motions, operating under the impression that it’s fine if you have nothing different to say, provided you’re willing to say the same thing louder this time.

X-MEN: APOCALYPSE (2) Directed by Bryan Singer • Starring Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, James McAvoy • Rated PG-13 • 144 mins. • At Maya Cinemas, Century Cinemas Del Monte, Northridge Cinemas, Century Marina, Lighthouse Cinemas, Cannery Row XD.