“Not as bad as you may have heard,” is hardly a compliment about a movie. You won’t see that quote on any advertisement. They’ll put out the ones calling it, “The most epic X-Men movie yet.” However, when the negative word on a movie is so loud, as it has been for this installment, it’s hard to take quotes like that seriously. So maybe, “Not that bad” is more of a ringing endorsement.

What is one of the key ingredients for a good superhero movie? You need good action sequences. “X-Men: Apocalypse” has some excellent fight and actions scenes, some of the better ones in the franchise. If you’ve read some of the negative reviews, this is not one of the areas they are complaining about, but they are not giving it much credit either.

So what are some of the issues plaguing “X-Men: Apocalypse?” One of them is the main villain, Apocalypse. First, a small complaint, he is never called Apocalypse anytime during the movie. It is mentioned how he could bring about the apocalypse, but he is never given that name. Strange since when it comes to X-Men bad guys, they don’t get much bigger than Apocalypse. Second, while there is little question of the great talent Oscar Isaac is as an actor, you don’t fully feel he inhabits the character the way one should when playing a superhero heavy in a movie. Sure they painted him blue and changed his voice, but that doesn’t automatically make any actor into the famed X-Men bad guy. The best way to explain it is to remind fans of how miscast Topher Grace was in “Spider-Man 3” playing Venom. That’s pretty much what we have here is Isaac’s case.

“X-Men: Apocalypse” is being shown in 3D, but as in most of these superhero movies, it is not worth spending the extra money seeing it in that format. It’s amazing how much money these studios put into these comic book movies, but then they get cheap when it comes to filming these movies with 3D cameras or on the conversion.

Another complaint you may read is how there are too many mutants to keep track of in “X-Men: Apocalypse.” If you have never seen any of the other X-Men movies before or read the comic book, then this is probably true. However, for most people who go see this movie, too many mutants will not be the case. There are a number of new actors playing roles that were once played by other actors. The previous mentioned Sophie Turner is Jean Grey, previously played by Famke Janssen and the new Storm is Alexandra Shipp, previously played by Halle Berry (Shipp does a better job with the accent). Since the movie is taking place in the 1980s, new actors were needed, but it is not hard to keep track of who is who.

You could say that “X-Men: Apocalypse” is the third movie of this new generation of X-Men movies, but it is nowhere as bad as “X-Men: The Last Stand” was by any means. However, out of the last three movies, it is the weakest entry. Fans of the franchise will probably still like it, but realize there was something lacking. It is rated PG-13 for sequences of violence, action and destruction, brief strong language and some suggestive images.