“X-Men: Dark Phoenix” Movie Review – Making Storm Create Freaking Ice cubes!
X-Men: Dark Phoenix has finally released, and after flopping at the box office, we can look forward to what the MCU decides to do with the mutants. And besides, there was no need for creating this film if it wasn’t going to be on a cosmic scale.
I have shared my opinions about X-Men: Dark Phoenix before. Some of you might call me biased. However, if calling out a bad movie which learned nothing from X-Men: The Last Stand is me being biased, well, so be it.
With the MCU having already offered big-scale films set in space, FOX could have followed suit. The studio knew people didn’t like the Phoenix Saga being confined to Earth in The Last Stand. FOX could have used this opportunity to fix past mistakes. But no. TPTB decided to allow Simon Kinberg (who wrote The Last Stand) to direct Dark Phoenix and ruin everything twice.
The plot of X:DP has nothing to do with Apocalypse. Remember when Jean went all firebird in Apocalypse? Yeah, that’s never mentioned. The latest installment is set in 1992 and the X-Men have an understanding with the US government. Their latest mission sends them to space to save astronauts from the Phoenix Force. Mind you, the cosmic entity isn’t called the Phoenix Force in the film for some weird reason. I’m still going to call it that, though.
Anyway, why was the Phoenix Force (which has destroyed numerous planets before) playing with a space shuttle instead of immediately destroying Earth? We don’t get an explanation.
Before the force can kill her teammates, Jean absorbs it. They come back to Earth and are heralded as heroes. I did notice a young girl carrying a Mystique action figure. I wonder if Mystique gets royalties from such merchandise.
Mystique isn’t happy because her team was put in danger due to Charles having turned into a fame hungry man for some reason. She wants out and out she definitely gets. Ha!
After Jean realized Charles had been lying to her about the death of her father, she grew angry and killed Mystique.
I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed seeing Raven die. Jennifer Lawrence brought nothing to the role. The moment this series decided to make her good because Lawrence was a huge Hunger Games star, they ruined Mystique as a character.
As for the villain, we got some generic alien race that wanted to harness the Phoenix Force to create a new home planet or something. Apparently, they’re the D’Bari, which, yeah, sure (eye roll).
The evil aliens were nothing more than plot devices to progress the film from one set piece to the next. And seriously, the set pieces made this movie feel incredibly small.
One of the action sequences involved the X-Men and Magneto’s Brotherhood trying to see who is able to cross a street and get to Jean, first.
The final big battle occurred on a train.
Diluting the comic’s cosmic saga to make the film feature a fight in a speedy train. Well done, Kinberg. Amazing stuff!
Now, there were some minor positives. Sophie Turner did an impressive job considering the material she was given. I also liked how Jean decided to sacrifice herself to save everyone instead of how she was dependent on Wolverine to kill her in The Last Stand for manpain.
The music by Hans Zimmer is of course, amazing. This movie didn’t deserve his brilliance. Some of the visuals showing Jean surrounded by the force were stunning.
Dark Phoenix is projected to have a very low box office opening. After seeing this film, I can see why. And I get there will be some defenders. But come on! Fox has been doing this for decades. The fact they still couldn’t give us a well-written X-Men movie when handling the Phoenix Saga with a reported $200 million budget is inexcusable.
Also, the writers made Storm create freaking ice cubes for Scott and Jean’s drinks! This movie deserves to flop!
Feel free to share your thoughts with us.
Author: Farid-ul-Haq
Farid has a Double Masters in Psychology and Biotechnology as well as an M.Phil in Molecular Genetics. He is the author of numerous books including Missing in Somerville, and The Game Master of Somerville. He gives us insight into comics, books, TV shows, anime/manga, video games, and movies.
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So disappointing! I wish Fox had let the franchise go out with A Big Bang instead of a small whimper.
I have no idea why they decided to release this movie in cinemas and spent even more $’s on promotion. It would have been better off being released on the Disney+ streaming service.
Wanted to address a few things:
To be fair, to the filmmakers. The final battle was set in space like in the two Phoenix Sagas in the original cut. But due to reshoots and budget they had to scale back.
The movie was going to be a two parter with the Shi’ar and Jessica as Lilandra but the studio had condensed into a single film in late pre-production. Kinberg didn’t want the movie to be bloated and lose focus on Jean so he cut them out.
As for Jean going firebird in Apocalypse: that has been stated since X2 to be the result of her mutation, fiery telekinetic energy from her mutation instead of a cosmic entity. The movie does tie into Jean’s subplot in Apocalypse where she has a vision of the future and believes her powers will go out of control hurting people.
It’s was explained that the entity was drawn to Jean’s power and that it was her destiny to bound with it.