X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)

Oscar Isaac, one of the most expressive actors working, spends this entire movie buried under blue rubber with a voice filter, and you’d never know it was him. That’s X-Men: Apocalypse in a nutshell. All the right pieces, smothered. The plot is a doomsday checklist: villain wakes up, recruits four followers, gives speeches about the weak, turns cities into dust. Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique mostly hands out pep talks. Michael Fassbender gets one gut-punch scene in Poland, then the script hands him a cape and nothing else to play. The bright spot is Quicksilver’s slow motion rescue, goofy and great and almost as good as his last one. Young Jean and Scott feel like a future worth watching too. Then it runs 144 minutes, and the last hour is mostly things crumbling. Critics gave it 47% on Rotten Tomatoes. A 4.3 because it’s loud, long and weirdly lifeless for a movie about the end of the world. $724 says you forget which X-Men movie this was by the weekend and have to look it up.

What works: Quicksilver’s slow motion rescue is a blast, and Sophie Turner and Tye Sheridan make a promising young Jean and Scott.

What doesn’t: Apocalypse is a generic doomsday villain, the stakes feel weightless, and the endless crumbling city finale goes on far too long.

Who it’s for: X-Men completists and Quicksilver fans willing to sit through a lot of rubble for one great scene.