X-Men: Apocalypse is the latest X-Men movie from Marvel, and is a coherent and balanced story that works quite well.

The film starts in ancient Egypt. A very solemn ceremony begins, with all the pomp and circumstance you can imagine. There is a transition of power for En Sabah Nur (Oscar Isaac), and there are hints that the people are involved have magical powers. Before it can complete, the people revolt. Most of the people involved are killed, but one survives, sealed deep underground.

Fast forward to 1983, a decade after the events that occurred in X-Men: Days of Future Past. Mutants are still mistrusted, but tolerated. However, in some circles, they are captives, used for the entertainment of regular humans. In East Germany, a mutant fight club exists. and Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) enters and disrupts the goings-on, freeing those who were being held to fight one other.

In Poland, Magneto/Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender) is hiding. After his attack on the President, he’s become public enemy number one, across the globe. He has a wife and daughter now, and is trying to lay low, but he is discovered, with unfortunate results.

In Egypt, CIA Agent Mactaggert (Rose Byne) has discovered that some worshippers have uncovered the tomb of En Sabah Nur, and are in the process of reviving him. The cavern collapses, but he comes to life. He starts to acclimate to modern times, but realizes that he must rise to the level of power he had before. He recruits a mutant who’s living on the streets, and seeks more. He picks up Magneto, who has, once again, turned against humanity. The only way to exert this control is to destroy everything and start over, with everyone under his thumb.

Agent Mactaggert reaches out to Professor Xavier (James McAvoy) to warn him of what’s happening. Professor X uses his Cerebro device to try to locate Apocalypse (as he’s being called), but Apocalypse notices, and instead captures the professor, and things go out of control from there. Raven, who sees Magneto, understands that she needs the help of everyone at the academy, including a young Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) and Cyclops (Tye Sheridan).

There are many characters in play, and I’ve left out quite a bit of setup, as well as the stories following others. However, different from the quantity of characters in Captain America: Civil War, the amount of time spent on the main characters and their backstories really works well. Each part of the story has a flow to it that was not found in the Avengers movie, and they all converge at the climax of the film, quite well, actually.

There was one subtextual element that most people wouldn’t have picked up on, and the ones that do( besides me) downplay its importance. In the movie, someone’s watching an episode of Star Trek called, “Who Mourns for Adonis?”, where the ancient god Apollo has captured the Enterprise crew, and wants them to go back to the old ways. In that episode, and in this movie, the ‘god’ hasn’t realized that humans no longer have a need for gods, and it’s time to put a stop to it. The final resolution does not go well, for them.

The final conflict builds to a satisfying outcome, and everyone does their part. I felt this was a better superhero movie than Captain America: Civil War, and I do strongly recommend X-Man: Apocalypse over it. It works better on the big screen..

There is a post-credits scene that probably works best if you know the Marvel comic book universe.