Dark Phoenix

Starring: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Sophie Turner, Tye Sheridan, Jessica Chastain, Alexandra Shipp, Evan Peters, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Scott Shepherd, Brian d'Arcy James, Halston Sage, Daniel Cudmore (uncredited)
Directed by: Simon Kinberg
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Action, Science Fiction, Adventure
2019

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: The X-Men must face off against one of their own as cosmic powers begin exerting control over Jean (Sophie Turner) and potentially threatening all of humanity.

Review:

Tim: The abysmal box office and all-around failure of Dark Phoenix are pretty fascinating. The X-Men franchise has enjoyed decades of success and I've been especially forgiving of the films over the years (I rated Apocalypse a 7, for Pete's sake). It's interesting because everyone was more than happy to heap criticism on this movie- much of it deserved (but not all of it). This is still a decent movie, but I think that combined with franchise fatigue is why it's easy to see this as the worst X-Men movie yet.

The franchise itself is so interesting. I've always been a big fan. Every time the franchise started to go downhill, you'd get an X-Men: First Class or a Logan to remind you of how great the franchise can be. However, it was a perfect storm of factors that caused this to fail. We've had too many X-Men movies too close together. The main franchise has been on a downward trajectory since Days of Future Past. The MCU has shown how great a superhero franchise can be and has set a new bar. The purchase of Fox by Disney also made this movie feel completely unnecessary. People want to see the X-Men as part of the MCU, no one cared about the final Fox film.

I also have to give Simon Kinberg a great deal of criticism, too. He might know this franchise inside out due to his writer and producer status, but this wasn't the film to make your feature film directorial debut. Kinberg also wrote the screenplay, so he deserves a lot of wrath for delivering a redundant, generic movie. Sure, he does direct a decent film, but all the ingredients were here to make something special. He does the exact opposite. There was a lot of excitement when the film was first announced. The Dark Phoenix run is one of the greatest in the X-Men comics and it was frustrating that X-Men: The Last Stand messed this up. That felt too much like a subplot in that movie and it didn't do it justice. There was a certain appeal to the franchise tackling the exact same story, just 13 years and 9 movies later. I was excited to see them do it right. And, instead, Kinberg delivers an even worse film. This same franchise has tried to tackle the exact same story twice and failed both times. That is incredibly frustrating.

The story felt so bland to me. I simply couldn't get invested in anything that happened. It was all okay- nothing was terrible, but I just felt disinterested in it all. It felt like we'd seen this movie before (partially because we literally have). The movie is too generic, too close to the other movies in this franchise. Phoenix was the antagonist here, but it might as well have been Apocalypse or Magneto. It just didn't hold my interest at all. A lot of this has to do with Kinberg's direction. He puts together some decent action sequences (the train scene is pretty cool), but it ultimately pales in comparison to everything else we've seen this franchise do. It was probably the right call to shrink the scope of the film after the missteps in Apocalypse, but they took it too far and this film felt too small, too inconsequential. The budget wasn't large enough and the canvas Kinberg worked with felt too minuscule. Again, the movie is decent, but the 12th film in the franchise feels all too redundant and small.

This movie continues to misuse the character of Mystique. It's frustrating to see how the character and the story was subverted to better feature Jennifer Lawrence. That impacts this movie because a big dramatic moment feels less impactful because Mystique was never supposed to be a protagonist in the first place. As much as I like Michael Fassbender as Magneto (and I really, really do), his presence here felt a bit forced and unnecessary. It was like he was included because he's a good actor, not because the story demanded it. I was glad to see Jessica Chastain, but her character is atrocious. She's boring and forgettable and her performance suffers as a result. I always like seeing James McAvoy, but it felt like his heart wasn't in this one. The cast as a whole is too big, so it feels like too many people get shortchanged. I like Tye Sheridan, Evan Peters, and Kodi Smit-McPhee, but none of them make a big enough impact on the film. Kinberg isn't able to balance this many characters.

Dark Phoenix was a decent movie. It's not even close to a Josh Trank Fantastic Four level disaster. However, for the 12th film of a franchise, this movie had no business being this bad. There's a clearly established blueprint for success. This franchise has created so many great moments, but has been quietly eating up the goodwill it established. This film's failure is a clear sign that it's time for this franchise to go dormant. At some point, Marvel will pull these characters into the MCU, but this disappointing movie highlights that they need to sit on the sideline for a bit.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: X-Men: First Class, X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: Apocalypse