SPOILERS BELOW
Just got back from this one, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I might like it more than Civil War (if only Spidey was in this one, it would be no contest!). I would rank the first 2/3rds up there with any X-Men movie to date. I found myself smiling and just reflecting about how well everything was working together. In particular, I was glad to see Cyclops get more attention than in any other X-Men movie to date, and for him to be likable, and to demonstrate some flashes of what he became in the comic under Claremont. But there was very little in that section of the movie that I disliked. I thought Isaac was intimidating and cool. I liked the guy cast as Angel a lot (though not much to connect him to the comic version). The casting in general I really liked, in fact. Reflecting on things as I left, I was thinking back to the closest, recent parallel to this in my mind--Age of Ultron--and I found this better across the board. More coherent story, better acting, more interesting characters, better pacing, fewer WTF moments. I'm very excited about seeing the team moving forward. . .so long as Cyke is being prepped to lead the team, and Mystique gets the hell out of there.
Other things I enjoyed was Caliban and what seemed to be Morlocks, '80s stuff was great, though I'm not sure that we needed Mags to get traumatized terribly again, that was all well done, I thought the special effects were on par with anything else out there, and the Quicksilver scene, once again, was great. Jean turning into Phoenix was funny, because it is like a fantasy for Game of Thrones fans who would love to see Sansa pull something like this on Ramsay and Petyr Baelish. Not sure if we needed to have the Phoenix card pulled this soon, but in movies they do move the timeframe up moreso than you would see in other media. I would love to see them tackle Dark Phoenix saga in the near future, and to do it in a space opera with the Shi'ar, Imperial Guard, Cyclops's dad, etc.
But the one big issue I had was with the ending, just in the sense that it felt like it went on too long, and was just overkill. At a certain point, when the world's blowing up all over the place, you get a bit desensitized, and it would have been better to scale back or. . .do something else with it. And on this point, I think it compares to Age of Ultron, which suffered from the same affliction. But maybe this is mandated by the consumer focus groups who expect ridiculously over the top action scenes to cap off comic book movies. So, it did feel a bit "overstuffed," though that's par for the course with comic movies nowadays. Every one I've seen this year had that problem on one level or another.
Quibbles: Psylocke was wasted, and seemed inserted just purely as fan service. And she and Angel both felt like afterthoughts in the big showdown, though there was a lot that had to be fit in there, again. The post-credits scene might be the worst I've seen in memory. And that's saying something with all the lame "here's Thanos again!" teases in the MCU. But I don't recall this Essex organization at all from the comics, and it just felt so generic. Bummed we probably won't see Angel again, though who knows (we already saw another incarnation of him in another movie. . .maybe this wasn't Warren Worthington?). The Wolverine tease seemed a bit unnecessary, but it didn't really bother me. Again, seems generic to have him rampaging in a Weapon X facility. Seems like we've already seen this numerous times. Not thrilled with Mystique taking up this much screen time, though I think she was fine.
There should be an R rated director's cut (no pun intended).
