3) Shaky CGI
There’s a lot of CG-based spectacle in Apocalypse. Like a Roland Emmerich movie, it’s a disaster epic involving huge, heavily computer-generated action set-pieces. Unlike a Roland Emmerich movie, Apocalypse‘s effects aren’t always so up to scratch. Say what you will about Emmerich, but he at least tries to get his CGI right even when his dull human characters come out looking like they’re made of cardboard.
Take Apocalypse‘s final act, an interminably long sequence that finds Apocalypse and Magneto trying to control the Earth’s magnetic poles (don’t ask why) as the X-Men attempt to stop them. Some of the worst stuff here looks almost like pre-viz footage, as Singer shows us cities being destroyed around the world and Magneto builds a giant steel city for Apocalypse. Like so much of the film, the CGI too often seems rushed or, worse, merely unfinished.