X-Men: Apocalypse

Most fanboys and fangirls agree that the Disney-owned Marvel organization has managed to get more of its superheroes onto the big screen with dignity than the Time-Warner owned DC. For those who crave more equality, we can take comfort that director Bryan Singer has now done for the X-Men what Kryptonite does for DC's Superman.

X-Men: Apocalypse, as the title implies, is expectedly full of images of impending ruin.

There isn't much else.

Singer cut his teeth on small indie dramas like Public Access and The Usual Suspects, so it's disconcerting that he and screenwriter Simon Kinberg (X-Men: Days of Future Past) have forgotten how to create believable people or mutants.

As with Matthew Vaughn's X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Days of Future Past, younger actors take over the roles of characters established in Singer's first two movies, but this time the new performers playing Cyclops (Tye Sheridan), Storm (Alexandra Shipp) and Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) leave little impression. At times, it's a little like watching somebody doing a homemade cosplay version of the previous movies.

It gets even worse when it comes to the villains, the anti-mutant Col. William Stryker (Josh Helman) simply stands around and looks mean. Helman doesn't perform as much as he poses. Because of how little he's asked to do, it's hard to tell if he lacks the range or sense of menace that Brian Cox brought to the role in X2.

While this might sound like carping over what geeks consider essential and everyone else happily ignores, having a villain who isn't a caricature is essential, even for a superhero movie. From the beginning, X-Men co-creator Stan Lee and his collaborators used the series to explore and condemn real world prejudices.

In a comic book, it's sometimes easier to explore unwarranted hatreds than it is in allegedly serious literature. Because Cox's Stryker had motives for his bigotry, it was easier to see how these hatreds play out in movies and off screen. Stryker is very much a bad guy in X2, but having reasons for his behavior gave the movie some flesh-and-blood to go with the mutated DNA.

Actually, the new, primary villain is even more uninspiring. En Sabah Nur aka Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac) is an ancient Egyptian ur-mutant who was once feared as a god. Having been dormant for a few millennia, En Sabah Nur is eager to rule the planet again and to destroy all that humankind has constructed during his extended nap.

His large swatch of property damage is likely to lead to similar drowsiness in viewers. When he recruits the angry Magneto (Michael Fassbender) to tear up cities, Fassbender simply waves his arms as CGI metal flies around him.

There's no sense of dread or wonder in the achievement. Heroes and villains look as if they're using sign language instead of fighting. There's no consequence to mass destruction, so it looks more tedious than frightening.

Isaac, buried under blue makeup, spends most of the film looking less as if he is the face of angry wrath and more like he has been suffering from indigestion. Because the battles consist of pixels, scowls and semaphore, there's little fun to be had.

As mutant ninja Psylocke, Olivia Munn fits into her skin tight uniform well, but Singer and Kinberg have inexplicably decided not to capitalize on the flair for wisecracks she has demonstrated on Attack of the Show and The Daily Show. Is there any emotion in this film besides somber dread?

Kinberg seems to have run out of interesting things for the mutants to do. Jennifer Lawrence's Mystique in most movies transforms into other people. Here, she turns into Mystique.

Kinberg also has lots of dialogue that could easily be paraphrased as "this is an allegory." In the previous movies, Singer and company were occasionally able to fit such delicate subjects like the Holocaust and the Cold War into movies without bludgeoning viewers about the metaphors.

Stan Lee and other X-Men veterans show up for some expected cameos. It's too bad no one involved seems to remember how these films used to be fun.

MovieStyle on 05/27/2016