In 2011, Matthew Vaughn stepped into the X-Men franchise and gave it new life with the fun and incredibly enjoyable 1960’s set reboot, X-Men: First Class. 2014 brought the return of original X-Men Bryan Singer, melding the old and the new in the enjoyable 1970’s set X-Men: Days of Future Past. The story continues now in the 1980’s, with Singer again returning behind the camera for X-Men: Apocalypse, and unfortunately - the magic is completely lost.

That’s right - this installment may be the worst X-Men film yet, performing in quality below even X-Men Origins: Wolverine and X3: The Last Stand. And the worst part? It could’ve been great.

With this installment - the ninth X-Men film overall, if you include February’s Deadpool - we feature the long-awaited-by-fans film debut of legendary villain Apocalypse (Oscar Issac). And really, that’s your plot of the film. Apocalypse appears, and the X-Men have to punch him in the face. None of the nuance and interesting era integration seen in the last two films occurs here. Remember how First Class juxtaposed the birth of the Magneto/Xavier conflict with the dawn of the cold war? Or how Days of Future Past took the post-Vietnam paranoia and used it to justify the creation of the Sentinels? Yeah, not so much here. Apocalypse has risen, with his undefined power-set (besides being “ALL POWERFUL"), and we know it’s the 1980’s because the first two movies were in the 60’s and 70’s, the graphics on-screen say so, characters wear funny clothes, and there’s a mall trip. (And they’re even so bold as to use Return of the Jedi to make a joke about how bad third installments are. Not something you want to do when your own third edition is dragging the audience down.)

Sadly - this lack of justification besides “because" fills the 144 minute run-time of the film.

• Why is Oscar Issac under so much makeup and incredibly underused as Apocalypse? Because they wanted a star and didn't care to use anything besides his name.
• Why is Rose Byrne back as Moira MacTaggert? Because she became a bankable star after being written-out and they feel no need to really write her in.
• Why is Angel used here with zero connection to the 2003-era version? Because they want to use the Archangel look and they'll be damned if they do anything else!
• Why is there a new Storm? Because the last one didn’t have a sweet mohawk!
• Why are there scenes of absolutely senseless brutal violence? Because we need you to know that those moments are important!
• Why does pretty much the entire world get destroyed in the final act? Because we need you to think the stakes are high!
• Why is there a random sequence in the Weapon-X facility? It's a spoiler, but you can probably figure out what we wanted to shoehorn in here!
• Why does the timeline for this film in no way shape or form lineup with the prior two films, let alone the reality of the first three movies that it supposedly intersects with? Because that’d be hard!

It’s simply put, one of the laziest large scale blockbusters I’ve seen in ages. And it’s all the more frustrating because of the potential there.

Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy have - previously - done amazing work as Magneto and Xavier respectively, but all their efforts to redefine the characters go to total waste here. They return to the basic versions of each character, loosing everything that made their versions great. Jennifer Lawrence practically sleepwalks through the film as Mystique, a shame, as much of the plot (what plot there is) is built around her growth as a character. Evan Peters’ Quicksilver, a highlight of Days of Future Past (outdoing Marvel’s interpretation of the character in Avengers: Age of Ultron) is completely wasted as well. Sure, he gets a highlight action sequence, but it just feels like a dull retread of the moment he had in the last film. Even our new cast members show potential that is never achieved: Tye Sheridan gets a great version of Cyclops’ origin, but not much else. Kodi Smit-McPhee looks and sounds wonderful as Nightcrawler, but his character’s use in this film is an absolute regression from X-Men 2. And Sophie Turner could be great as Jean Grey if she didn’t seem so removed and bored with the film.  You may note I say nothing about Olivia Munn’s Psylocke. That’s because there is nothing to say. She does little to nothing of note in the film, and literally just walks away.

Simply put - X-Men: Apocalypse is the greatest misuse of superhero storytelling and potential since The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

Just pull Bryan Singer away from the franchise. Never use these screenwriters again. Start fresh. Forget an Apocalypse, we need a new beginning.

X-Men: Apocalypse is in theaters now.