Splatter: on FILM

Oscar Isaac plays evil villain mutant god, Apocalypse, who seeks world domination through destruction and mind control. Same old. Same old. Cool make-up though.As a magnet for mutant power, he gains control of all. Believing he is a god, his thirst for ultimate dominance forces an 80’s Care Bear stare-down in yet another civil-war type super-battle. McAvoy charms. Fassbender feels. Jennifer Lawrence glows.Top game for many seasoned pros now surrounded by debut newbies who work equally as hard to show off their powers and prove their places in the legendary Marvel universe.The 80’s can actually be a tough period to pull off in a film. It’s easy to slip too far down the rabbit hole of crimped bangs, fingerless gloves, fishnets and hightops. Add leather strappy boots and reference Coca-cola, and I guess you’re half-way there. The filmmakers also often made it feel like an 80’s sitcom’s Christmas episode rife with flashbacks of famous favorite family moments.
Sadly this X installment is more promise than payoff, more flashback than Flashdance. A few glaring missteps:

• Nukes launch and … sit suspended in space?
• The character “Apocalypse” is all-powerful, but needs help? … from his flippantly chosen crew? …is not decaying but wants Professor X’s tiny, crippled body to live in? …or was it his mind. hmm…
• Magneto is under the Apocalypse spell, but so quickly won over by words of friendship from his shape-shifty blue comrade Mystique
• The Professor’s crush on Moira McTaggert (Rose Byrne)… without a wink or a glance at the end?
• Apocalypse can grow in the mind world, but the Professor can’t?
• Apocalypse can enter the Professor’s mind, but not Jean’s? 
• They explained the Xmen connect to the Cold War, but was the world nearly destroyed in the 80’s and we just miss that in the history books?
• 90% exposition, 10% action? The tagline is “Only the strong will survive.” Perhaps they meant the fans.