As a kid watching X-Men the animated series, Apocalypse always felt like the most difficult and challenging villain ever conceived in any comic book series. Since, this movie acts as the third prequel before the original X-Men movies, that feeling was lost on me. To me, this movie would have made more sense before revealing the Phoenix Sage that closes the series. Instead, the writers chose to make it part 3 of 6 and therefore the power and god-like abilities of Apocalypse were lost on me. Instead, he just seemed like another villain; something else to be conquered on our way to a formulaic comic book movie. To me, this isn't what I wanted nor do I think it was the intent of the writers. So, just like Venom in the Spider-man movies, we lost the power of another villain thanks to poor placement.
Be good to each other,
-Nathan