Singer has always had a talent for mining history for entertainment, from Valkyrie to X-Men’s opening scene in World War II. A swift bit of sabotage later and he’s trapped forever, only to be unearthed by a devoted team of fanatics – because there’s always a devoted team of fanatics – in the 1980s. Things begin extremely promisingly, with a prologue set in 3600 BC, when Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac) is doing the things that all mutants used to do in ancient Egypt: lording it over the locals, hanging out in fancy pyramids and transferring his consciousness into other mutants whenever he gets old so he can keep on living forever. Sure enough, things descend into one big virtual punch-up over the two-hour-plus runtime, but there’s much to enjoy in the carnage. X-Men: Apocalypse, though, does a very good job of almost rivalling Ratner’s hot CGI mess with its own hot (more coherent) CGI mess – a reminder that writer Simon Kinberg penned both, as well as DoFP (and, incidentally, This Means War and Jumper). And some jokes about that Brett Ratner sequel.

After the timey-wimey complexities of that convoluted retcon, though, X-Men: Apocalypse marks a return to simpler ideas: a giant, blue guy trying to destroy the world and a school-load of good mutants trying to stop him. “The third one’s always the worst,” quips Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) halfway through X-Men: Apocalypse – just in case you hadn’t already guessed that director Bryan Singer didn’t like Brett Ratner’s The Last Stand from the fact that he invented an entire film (Days of Future Past) to eradicate it from existence. Watch X-Men: Apocalypse online in the UK: Disney+ / Apple TV (iTunes) / Prime Video (Buy/Rent) / TalkTalk TV / Rakuten TV / Google Play Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Oscar Isaac, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender

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