I enjoyed it, but I mainly wanted to post because of the post credit scene. Wooooo Mr Sinister!
If they're doing the Phoenix next, which a lot of people involved with the series have suggested, I think Sinister would make sense as the villain, since the Phoenix would totally be in his area of interest and he has the requisite powers.
Reposting my thoughts from the other thread, since I guess this is meant to be the spoiler discussion place. Pluses and minuses:
+ Magneto: Has a really strong arc, and great acting by Michael Fassbender. I really like the scene where his family is killed, because it shows the best sort of nuanced characterization that Singer has brought to these movies; the people that come to arrest him are not psychos or anything like that, and the deaths of his family happen by accident. In a lot of stories they'd just be a bunch of goons who machine-gun the place.
+ Apocalypse: A lot of the reviews really don't like Apocalypse, and describe Oscar Isaac as wasted. Now, for fans of Isaac's ace dramatic work, I guess maybe you could think that, since Apocalypse isn't a complex character or anything; but I think Isaac does a really good job playing this guy who thinks he's a god. He's got presence, and his recruitment drive, culminating in the first scene where he launches all the world's nuclear weapons, are great sequences.
+ Scott & Jean: These two are done way better than they were in the original trilogy. Strong casting in both cases, and Jean, especially, has a really good arc, though her introduction is perhaps a little abrupt. But what an ending.
+ Nightcrawler: A more minor character, but his intro is nice enough, and the actor handles both the comedy and more serious sides of the character well, what we see of them.
+ Professor X: Doesn't have as big a role here as in the previous films, but he's definitely arrived more or less at his optimal form. And unlike previous team movies that had to take him completely out of commission for the climax, here he's got a real role to play that doesn't impair other characters either. Nicely done.
+ Mystique: Ah, the ever-controversial character. For those who really hate the trailer suggestion that she's team leader, etc., that isn't the case, for what it's worth. She's an ensemble player here. She also has a workable arc, one that actually incorporates the complaints people made about why she isn't in her blue form more. This feels like a good resolution to the character's arc over the previous movies. Though it will be kind of awkward if she's not in future installments.
- Moira: I loved Rose Byrne in
First Class, and she's fine here; I like that it resolves one of the more dubious aspects of FC's end. If things were different, I'd be fine with her being in the movie in what is clearly intended as a side role. But with some other aspects of the movie clearly needing more time, I think she should have been dropped and that time shuffled elsewhere. She's ultimately not needed.
- Quicksilver: His big mansion rescue sequence is fun, but it's not as good as the DOFP sequence, and I feel it's tonally out of place with what immediately preceded it. Beyond that, the arc of him looking for his father just fizzles without any real payoff. Now in a sense I actually like the script avoiding what many people predicted as a trite resolution where Magneto is swayed away from Apocalypse by learning he still has a son, but there really needed to be some payoff to this arc.
- Storm: I'd call this the movie's single-biggest missed opportunity. First, the positive: Alexandra Shipp seems well-cast; the accent is good, and the character has a pretty solid introduction. Moreover, in interviews Singer outlined a vision for Storm's role in this story that I think would have worked, if there'd been enough time, namely, showing a sort of troubled youth drawn to a cult leader. One could infer from that that she'd see the error of her ways and switch sides. And yeah, that happens, but it's barely dramatized. The character virtually vanishes after her introduction in Egypt. As the contours of the plot became clearer over the course of production/advertising, I figured we would see Storm interacting with the captured Professor X and being convinced that the path she was on wasn't right. That's what they should have done. When I say they should have dropped Moira, they should have used the saved time to give Storm a proper arc. I guess they could also have dropped Quicksilver, if they weren't going to fine-tune his story more.
guy just wanted to live with his wife and daughter