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.