Bryan Singer/ 2016/ USA/ 144 mins

On nationwide release now

“I think we can all agree the third one is always the worst.”

If ever a throwaway wink to the audience had the potential to backfire like a faulty musket it’s this one, and unfortunately director Bryan Singer and writer Simon Kinberg deserve to find themselves sooty with hubris.   X-Men: Apocalypse is by some distance the weakest of the three recent prequels.

Set in 1983, the story concerns the awakening of Ur-mutant En Sabah Nur, also known as Apocalypse; thousands of years old, and intent on removing the false gods of government, law, and Cold War-grade mutually assured destruction.  He recruits four ‘horsemen’ to aid him, among them Michael Fassbender’s Magneto, who just wants the World to burn after the death of his wife and daughter.

In Fassbender’s hands, Magneto easily remains the series’ strongest character.  The most soulful and ambiguous of villains, he’s a gift for an actor of that charisma and the film becomes a congealed trifle of character clutter when he is off-screen.  Apocalypse is a dull villain.  Despite seemingly unlimited power, he’s a blunt instrument who doesn’t understand there’s no point in being a god when you’ve killed all of your potential flock. Buried under ugly and unconvincing prosthetics, Oscar Isaac gives an uncharacteristically one-dimensional performance.

James McAvoy’s Professor Xavier lacks all of the depth of his counterpart Magneto, and basically demonstrates John Jarndyce levels of hope and patience throughout, even as the presumed collateral damage skyrockets into the millions; albeit in a weightless smash of pixels.  He’s a fine actor given little to do beside act as exposition for a breathless plot that hurtles along like a toddler learning to run; head down and tottering.  However, the film still weighs in near the two-and-a-half hour mark: a prog rock story played at grindcore velocity.  As the last hour degenerates into  one hyperactive set piece it becomes wearying, and despite the supposed doom-laden consequences of failure, there is no feeling of genuine peril.

It’s a shame, as XM:A plays with weighty themes and biblical imagery, yet never has the time to spend developing these threads.  It’s entertaining enough; these films usually are; crucially retaining a sense of fun, but it feels we’re merely being blown through the story like tumbleweeds.

There are some bright points.  Kodi Smit-McPhee provides much of the comic relief as the awkward, endearing Nightcrawler, and with his performance in the recent western Slow West demonstrates a hopeful future as an interesting, quirky screen presence.  We also get a welcome glimpse of Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine in full berserker mode, even though he’s utilised as a lazy deus ex machina.

We can’t fault the ambition on show, and it isn’t a genuinely bad film but, as with the Avengers, there are too many characters to juggle, with the result that it feels simultaneously lumbering and overly lightweight.  There’s a big drop-off in quality from the excellent previous installment, Days of Future Past.