X-Men: Dark Phoenix is the 12th installment in 20th Century Fox’s X-Men franchise. It is sort of a remake of the 2006 X-Men: The Last Stand.
Phoenix = Bird raises from its own ashes.
The story takes place after X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) where mutants are now accepted by the public and X-Men are on good terms with the government. The movie doesn’t recap much and trusts its viewers to have seen the previous films so if you haven’t seen them, you might be confused with a few things here and there.
The plot fully revolves around Jean Grey, who gets a major boost of power after an X-Men mission in space. She loses control to that power and people start to get hurt. Charles Xavier and his team of X-Men have to decide if it is worth it to risk everyone’s life to try to save her from herself.
The film is directed and the screen was written by Simon Kinberg, who wrote X-Men: The Last Stand, X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), X-Men: Apocalypse and 2015 Fantastic Four.
The biggest issue about the film is the rushed progression of the story. Just like the final season of Game of Thrones and Jean Grey here is basically Daenerys Targaryen who turns into this mad powerful biatch without proper character development. Coincidentally, Sophie Turner, who played the role of Sansa Stark in Game of Thrones, is playing Jean Grey.
But even with the rushed development, Kinberg didn’t have enough time in one movie so Jean Grey doesn’t get to become the full Dark Phoenix here. She doesn’t go totally crazy evil. She doesn’t kill too many people. You know the part in the trailer where she says, “When I lose control, bad things happen. But it feels good,” I don’t remember her saying that in the movie itself.
Actually, now that I think about it, I’m not even sure what exactly is making her lose control. I guess it’s just her, deciding to do all the bad things after her power is amplified. Which doesn’t make sense without the proper character development that this story needs?
Some of the other characters’ decisions and thinking are like dumbed down to progress the plot faster. Without Wolverine, it can feel like a strong, iconic presence is missing.
The ending of the film most definitely feels like a rushed job. It doesn’t give us the full aftermath. One of the characters gets injured halfway through the movie and I don’t remember seeing him again after that.
There are two really good action sequences. The space rescue mission at the beginning shows how the X-Men work together with their individual abilities to save a group of astronauts. I actually don’t remember seeing the X-Men being normal superheroes and saving people without fighting a supervillain. I really liked that.
At the start car accident in slow motion, the windscreen glass pieces flying in the air and the entire car crash shot is amazing.
Then there’s this long battle sequence in a train towards the end which I thought was really cool. The mutants really kick ass with their powers and the visual effects are fantastic as well. It’s really fun to watch as a fan.
The performances of the actors are really good.
In overall, despite its flaws, Dark Phoenix is still an entertaining superhero film.
I give it 3.5 out of 5.
Major Spoilers Ahead
Raven dies
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