Dark Phoenix
Directed By: Simon Kinberg
The last tale in the Fox X-Men saga Dark Phoenix could have been a hell of a lot better. The material and the talent deserved better. But this is where we are (and not for the first time) and despite that Dark Phoenix was for me perfectly… average.
I’d actually rate Apocalypse worse and probably Wolverine: Origins.
So as seen in the trailers the X-Men go to space to save some astronauts and Jean gets infected with a cosmic entity of mysterious proportions. (Aren’t they all?) And if you did suffer through Apocalypse and wonder hey didn’t she have that in the end of the last movie? You aren’t alone.
Don’t think on it. If there’s anything consistent about the X-Men at this point it’s that continuity is totally screwed.
Did I imagine a time when Fassbender made good movies with no caveats? Eh. He and McAvoy do their thing more here which makes is better than Apocalypse for me anyway. It’s just same old same old. There are some interesting threads with Charles Xavier in the beginning where I couldn’t help but think he/McAvoy could make a great villain. But mind control is terrifying to me.
That’s what the movie is really too fast and a lot of dropped threads. We jump into a whole different world where Charles literally has a phone to the President and the mutants are pretty popular. Mystique brings up some good points but that goes nowhere as well. Jean and Scott who never got any time in the last movie are expected to sell a relationship here.
It’s a lot of catch-up and fast tracking and dropping story points that could be deeper. And the villain is… well, there and not much else.
Even the effects and action felt very average. Like some stuff was cool- and we’ve seen most of it in the trailers. Other stuff just felt odd like the integration of people not Jean in the space rescue scenes stuff like that which took me out of the action scenes.
Sophie Turner much like the movie was perfectly average. I’ve always thought even through Thrones Turner does best with strong direction, scripts and co-stars. She can’t carry weaker material but she doesn’t actively make it worse. I thought her best stuff here- where she didn’t really have the first two- were the scenes with McAvoy or Fassbender to play off.
Also the score was amazing. I swear I think the music is one of the reasons I’m giving the more more credit than most. Maybe I should have just saved money on the ticket and downloaded that? 🙂
Recommend: Yes -if you are an X-Men fan. Otherwise wait until you can rent it. Honestly even if you are an X-Men fan you don’t need to see it in theaters.
Oh that’s such a good point haha she’s already been manifesting flashes of Phoenix but here she “gets” the Phoenix. Too funny. 🙂 I heard it was terrible and honestly I’m not surprised- I mean if Kinberg screwed the story up last time, why have the same guy try again? I don’t get it. Oh well 🙂
I suppose Fox thought hey this is Disney’s problem soon so do what you want Simon? 🙂
Oh right that whole Magneto is his father thing…. I forgot about that and apparantly so did the writers 🙂 the score was good but even that was Zimmer putting minimal effort
The writers probably took lessons from Benioff and Weiss. Character and story need not apply :/
I saw it this past weekend and I agree with your review. I went into the film not expecting much because I am a huge fan of X-Men and the Phoenix story-line has always been my favorite. While there were moments that were entertaining, I felt very underwhelmed overall but I thought the movie was watchable enough. I probably should have waited for DVD though.
It’s probably a good it’s raining and there’s nothing better to do movie!
“How’s Magneto feel about being Quicksilver’s father? We’ll never know!” Too bad, I was looking forward to that part, I love both Fassbender and Peters.
I still don’t know if I should see this movie in cinemas or not…I’m undecided
I don’t think it needs to be seen in theaters if you are undecided. But at the same time its not the disaster some people make it out to be. Just kind of pointless 😉
Yeah I’m hearing this is pretty meh as a movie. And a lot of this sounds very average. But I might check it out cos I’m an x men movie… then again, I might just rewatch one of the old ones I actually like 😉 Excellent review!
I’ve never watched any of the X-Men movies, but I was really interested in watching this one until I saw all the terrible reviews. Jean Grey seemed like she could have made an interesting villain had they actually shown A to B from what I’ve heard.