Huge Plot Holes In X-Men: Apocalypse
X-Men: Apocalypse has it all: we're talking optic blasts, psychic powers, bald Xavier (hair-pulling spoilers ahead!), and even Jubilee with pink sunglasses. On the other hand, Bryan Singer's fourth mutant flick has got some Juggernaut-sized plot holes. We searched out any contradictions that left us second guessing what happened during the X-Men's mutant-powered slugfest with Apocalypse and his Four Horsemen. Here are the plot holes big enough to fly a Blackbird through.
Moira inadvertently wakes up Apocalypse
Moira MacTaggert has her heart in the right place when it comes to improving relationships between humanity and mutantkind, but things kind of keep exploding in her face (like turning Xavier into a paraplegic). Her absence from Days of Future Past wasn't really noticeable, but she makes up for this downtime by unintentionally awakening Apocalypse right off the bat in the follow-up. Investigating his cult of followers, she opens the stairway to the ruins containing Apocalypse's buried pyramid. The sunlight from the entrance she leaves open reaches the pyramid capacitor, fires up its machinery, and awakens En Sabah Nur. But why hasn't sunlight ever powered up the pyramid before, throughout all the centuries it's been down there? We're going to need another dose of Xavier's Superman II-style neuralyzer, stat!
The Simpsons Effect
If you haven't noticed, jumping decades across the past three X-Men films hasn't really changed how the cast visibly looks on screen. Remember when Magneto first entered Sebastian Shaw's concentration camp in First Class? That was around 1944. Even if he was about 10 years old at the time (mutant powers usually manifest around puberty), Magneto would've looked much older than 39-year-old Michael Fassbender was in X-Men: Apocalypse. Professor X, Havok, and the rest of X-Vets all look roughly the same as they did back in First Class...which was set 20 years earlier. Heck, Hank McCoy's Beast looks like he's getting even younger with each new movie.
Ignoring Days of Future Past's ending
One of the most awesome sequences of X-Men: Apocalypse involves Jean Grey, Nightcrawler, and Cyclops freeing Beast and the rest of their friends from William Stryker's clutches at his Alkali Lake Weapon X compound. They do this by setting a captive Wolverine free to raise hell. But...Wolverine's predicament kind of ignores the ending of Days of Future Past. At the end of the last film, the Wolverine of 1973 is captured by Mystique, posing as William Stryker. Why would she have left Logan to be experimented on in the Weapon X program if she's no longer the long-time X-Men villain that she usually is? She went out of her way to stop the underground mutant fighting pit and save Nightcrawler. It would've been rather easy for Mystique to set Wolverine free after he was recovered from the water.
Stryker arriving immediately after the school explodes
Speaking of plot holes with William Stryker, how did his men arrive at the X-Mansion just minutes after it was destroyed in fiery explosion? A ginormous fireball engulfing one of the biggest houses in Westchester County, New York, would've resulted in fire trucks and police cars heading right to it. Stryker's Alkali Lake base is presumably pretty far from Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, so we don't buy him just happening to be in the area and landing just a couple minutes after it happened. Even if he was tracing Cerebro or Xavier's mental projections somehow, we'd imagine the children of the school probably would've found local help first before Stryker and his team got there.
Magneto's powers turn global...then fizzle
Apocalypse helps unleash Magneto's full potential so he can control Earth's magnetic poles to cause global devastation while he's switching bodies with Xavier, right? Sure, we'll buy that. When Magneto decides to join his longtime friend and fellow mutants in saving the world, why did his powers drop down to seemingly less than normal? Minutes before, Magneto had an impenetrable shield and was ripping city blocks around the world into shreds. Magneto should've been able to pull satellites out of orbit and throw them down onto Apocalypse, but instead he just kept throwing nearby scrap metal at him. Even if Apocalypse removed his power boost from Erik somehow, there was so much metal in the area that Magneto could've done a lot more than that during the last fight.
Magneto leaves Xavier's School like he's not a fugitive
The last we see of Magneto, he's wearing a spiffy getup and parts ways with Xavier, passing on Charles' offer to stay at the school and teach younger generations of mutants. Despite helping the X-Men save the world, Magneto is still a wanted fugitive. Without anywhere else to go, you would think that the mansion would offer him a safe haven and a chance at making a difference in the community that matters most to him now: mutantkind. The whole reason he lost his wife and daughter in the first place was due to being recognized as Magneto. He's already tried the whole quiet life thing, and it didn't go so well. Sure, this leaves his outcome more open-ended so he could potentially return as the tragic villain once again in a future movie, but the world is likely looking for him again based on all the carnage he caused this time around.