Foxs’ cinematic X-Men franchise comes to a close with Dark Phoenix, centred around the X-Men coming to terms with a considerably changed Jean Grey after they come back to earth from a mission in space, the film stars Jennifer Lawrence, James McAvoy, Sophie Turner, Tye Sheridan, Jessica Chastain, Michael Fassbender, Nicholas Hoult and Alexandra Shipp.
Foxs’ cinematic universe is a complicated one, quite literally with a film timeline and inconsistencies that will boggle your mind if you try and look into properly (trust me, I have) but for all the ups and downs of the franchise, we can credit the X-Men with pioneering iconic Marvel characters on the big screen and going all out. 19 years on from the mutants 2000 debut, we have Dark Phoenix and how did we get here? It’s an interesting question actually because we already have a dark phoenix saga film X-Men: The Last Stand and of course it wasn’t very good.
The story is a bit different this time however, without the mutant cure storyline and without Magneto playing such a major role and also with a different, younger cast and with it being set in the 90s but the dark phoenix storyline follows some similar beats – Jean gets exposed to the phoenix force, goes kinda evil, the X-Men need to stop her. And what follows is well… confusing, I don’t think this should have been Foxs’ last X-Men film for one, they should have switched Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix in my view but I suppose the phoenix saga being one of the most popular X-Men stories from the comics forced their hand.
The problem with the film is that it just feels a bit soulless, Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique does seem to be trying a bit more this time but it’s a little too late, despite some good performances from James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender and Sophie Turner who is a brilliant Jean Grey in my view. The story itself felt a bit rushed and uninspired, you can fault the original X-Men trilogy for a few things but one thing it nailed was scope, showing a vast amount of mutants and their conflict with humans on a macro scale, while this film is clearly more focused on the core X-Men and t heir escapades (and Mystique).
Which is strange because of how apocalyptic and big in scope Days of Future Past and Apocalypse were, the stakes in Dark Phoenix never feel that high, the story feels predictable and while Jessica Chastain is amazing, she’s so much better than the generic villain she plays in the film. I’ve quite enjoyed the new X-Men films, I love First Class, enjoy Days of Future Past and I didn’t even hate Apocalypse but Dark Phoenix is a clear misfire with lackluster set pieces, a lack of tension and focus, brought about from maybe not knowing what to do with the story on a creative level, repeating tropes and focusing on wrong characters like Mystique, who isn’t even in the X-Men in the comics, guys.
4/10
. Lack of stakes and real tension in the story, don’t get a sense of world ending action
. Story itself feels a bit rushed
. Some bad set pieces, lack of memorable moments
The Movie knight 