X-Men: Apocalypse (Bryan Singer, 2016)

The very first mutant, the millennia-old En Sabah Nur, is reawakened in 1983, ten years after the events of the last film and sets immediately about destroying mankind. In parallel with this, in order to provide the nearly omnipotent baddie with opposition, the existing characters in the timeline are all revisited and a few more are added for good measure, such as an emo Nightcrawler, some in line with continuity and others with completely rewritten back stories.
The ranks of the X-juniors continue to grow with each instalment, the scriptwriters half-heartedly building a narrative bridge to the first X-Men film at the same time. This is leading to a serious case of superhero inflation, with each one of them having to be given an opportunity to do their turn, and the amount of CGI the film piles on top of that as the global destruction gets under way effectively chokes the drama out of it: almost every dialogue has to be cut short after serving its primary function of exposition of what's going on. The need for linkage between the films is also a burden, as is the obligatory Wolverine cameo. Meanwhile, Oscar Isaac, playing yet another character doused in blue make-up. is wasted as the megalomaniac villain.
There are moments when there is some relief, such as an extended rerun of the Quicksilver bullet time scene from the last film, and Singer struggles manfully with all the demands placed on him, but the franchise really can't go on developing this way.

5/10