X-Men: Apocalypse
2016
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Jun 7, 2019 · Dark Phoenix ends an era of the X-Men franchise by taking a second stab at adapting a classic comics arc -- with deeply disappointing results. Read Critics Reviews
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Jun 7, 2019 · In an early scene in “Dark Phoenix,” the X-Men are sent on a mission to save a crew of a space shuttle that is spinning out of control. Jean Grey, Professor X, Raven (Jennifer Lawrence), Beast (Nicholas Hoult), Cyclops (Tye Sheridan), Quicksilver (Evan Peters), Storm (Alexandra Shipp), and Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee) spring into action ...
- This Phoenix never burns as bright nor soars as high as the finale of the X-Men franchise deserved.
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By Jim Vejvoda
Updated: Apr 21, 2020 7:03 am
Posted: Jun 5, 2019 5:00 am
Although not the trainwreck some may have feared given its mostly lackluster trailers, Dark Phoenix nevertheless brings the long-running X-Men franchise to a close in a messy and muddled fashion. The film is marginally better than the previous telling of the Phoenix saga, X-Men: The Last Stand, and it’s certainly better than the bloated and excessive X-Men: Apocalypse, but Dark Phoenix is still a disappointing finale for this nearly 20-year-old series, as Disney assumes ownership of the X-Men characters from Fox going forward. (Yes, let’s acknowledge that The New Mutants is still the final X-related Fox-produced film left for release next year.)
Ostensibly Jean Grey’s movie, Dark Phoenix struggles to give Jean any true personality or identity outside of her super powers. The events of Apocalypse (which fell flatter for me than it did for IGN’s reviewer, Daniel Krupa) that seemed to trigger the awakening of her Phoenix powers are simply ignored here in favor of a celestial force that inhabits her during a rescue mission in space. While that may be more comics accurate than what happened in The Last Stand and what was hinted at in Apocalypse, her newfound godlike powers serve as merely a McGuffin for the villains to pursue and an excuse for the heroes to splinter apart in melodramatic fashion. The Phoenix force itself is left unexplored and hazily defined, essentially the outer space equivalent of a killer shark on the prowl or a demon looking for a soul to possess.
Sophie Turner plays the three shades of Grey that Jean’s given here -- scared, sobbing, and seething -- as best she can, but the script blazes through her tragic arc, never quite finding a personality for her in order to let an audience truly connect with Jean on an emotional level. The story becomes about Jean trying to find her agency amidst two older mentors — James McAvoy’s Charles Xavier and Jessica Chastain’s sinister alien — seeking to control her, but her journey is rushed and her characterization thinly sketched. The tragedy of Jean’s plight never quite carries as much weight as it should and thus neither does any of the damage, in lives or relationships, that she and her fellow X-Men endure as a result.
Jennifer Lawrence’s steely Mystique has her causal function to play in this story, one that sets Nicholas Hoult’s vengeful Beast in motion as his loyalties are put to the test. Michael Fassbender’s world-weary Magneto has seemingly found his corner of the world to live in peace before he’s dragged back into the fray, where he gets a few badass action moments to strut his stuff even as his worldview flip-flops throughout the movie. But all three characters, perhaps like the franchise itself, are just plain over it all and want to move on.
And the character they’re all equally most frustrated with is the endlessly pontificating Xavier who, after Jean, has the most pivotal arc in the story. Professor X’s hubris has been the Achilles’ heel of this younger incarnation, and Dark Phoenix sees him fairly demonized for his past actions (but largely for the same reasons previously explored in The Last Stand). Still, James McAvoy sells it all with a pained sincerity as Xavier reckons with a dilemma somewhat of his own making. Charles Xavier is living in a proverbial “be careful what you wish for” scenario as the X-Men are now hailed as heroes and mutants are less feared and hated than ever before -- until Jean turns to the dark side and publicly vents her rage at Xavier.
First-time director Simon Kinberg, who also scripted (and who co-wrote The Last Stand), crafts a few decent action set-pieces throughout, particularly a climactic battle aboard a train, and he maintains a level, largely somber tone for a good chunk of the film. Indeed, the first half of the movie is the best and most consistent part. But the film’s highly publicized reshoots — reportedly to differentiate it from another recent superhero movie (almost certainly Captain Marvel) — clearly impacted Dark Phoenix’s latter half, as the pacing grows erratic and some of the logic behind certain plot and character moments are lost.
One of the film’s biggest missed opportunities is its handling of the villains. An alien race — whom I’ll leave unnamed for the sake of spoilers — out to attain a cosmic weapon is hardly a novel idea (as Captain Marvel most recently depicted), but Dark Phoenix never gives Chastain’s character or any of her acolytes any dimension or personality. As with Oscar Isaac in Apocalypse, Dark Phoenix wastes a talented actor in an underwritten role, with Chastain delivering a flat performance as a one-dimensional super-powered baddie. (And you’ll be hard-pressed to even remember who Chastain played since her character’s name is said maybe just once in the whole movie.)
Dark Phoenix is ultimately yet another fumbled take on the classic saga from the Marvel Comics, albeit one without the side plots of The Last Stand. Add to it a jarringly uneven latter half and some underdeveloped cosmic villains, and Dark Phoenix is fortunate to have not fully ended the X-Men’s current big screen run on a completely down note. Whi...
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The X-Men make their last stand again, this time with only marginally better results, in Dark Phoenix.
Jim Vejvoda
Jun 7, 2019 · X-Men: Dark Phoenix Review. The second time is not the charm as Dark Phoenix sends the X-Men franchise out with a whimper. By Don Kaye | June 7, 2019 | | 0. Warning: this review...
Jun 8, 2019 · Entertainment. X-Men: Dark Phoenix review -- Jean Grey rises in uneven last mutant blast. Spoiler-free: After a shaky opening, Sophie Turner's fiery villain takes us on a wild ride to...
Jun 7, 2019 · Dark Phoenix - Metacritic. Summary In Dark Phoenix, the X-Men face their most formidable and powerful foe: one of their own, Jean Grey. During a rescue mission in space, Jean is nearly killed when she is hit by a mysterious cosmic force. Once she returns home, this force not only makes her infinitely more powerful, but far more unstable.
