Matthew Vaughn who directed X-men: First Class, wanted to do a movie in between first class and days of future past. So Vaughn left and Bryan Singer came back to make days of future past. While that movie did very well the sequel X-men: Apocalypse, had a low box office run and bad reviews. It’s because they ran out of material. So Dark Phoenix was originally going to be two movies ending the franchise on a high note, but due to script changes we got this disappointing movie. So let’s see what the movie gave us.
It’s the 1990s and the X-men are in good favor with America. They even have a phone that goes directly to he president. There’s a space shuttle that’s in danger of being hit by a cosmic storm. So the X-men go to space to save them and this is actually one of the two only good scenes of the movie. So Professor X sends Mystique, Beast, Jean Grey, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, and Quicksilver to space. So the effects of the space scene are pretty good. It's clean looking and well shot. Sophie Turner plays Jean Grey for the second time now and she is a good actress. She is just not given a lot to work with. Since the shuttle is spinning the X-men have to slow it down so Cyclops puts his ace in a laser and shoots the shuttle to slow it down. Then Nightcrawler and Quicksilver teleport to rescue the astronauts. Then space storm attacks Jean because she has to hold the shuttle together so the others can get the astronauts to safety. Jean doesn’t have a helmet so I guess she can breathe in space? But she absorbs the cloud and is just floating in space and survives.
So Jeans powers begin to get stronger and the movie alludes to the fact that it’s the entity revealed as the Phoenix force. But in the previous movie X-men: Apocalypse, Jean defeats apocalypse with a red fire energy that looks the same as the Phoenix but that’s just her regular latent powers. So from one movie to another the movie is inconsistent. Writer and director Simon Kinberg was also the writer of X-men: The Last Stand so whole Dark Phoenix is slightly more accurate to the comics he still messed up the Dark Phoenix story twice now.
The rest of the movie is about Jean trying to control her powers and revealing her past. She accidentally kills a fellow team member and goes to magneto. Another issue is that certain characters like Professor X, Magneto, Mystique, and Nightcrawler have been the same age for about 40 years in the movie timeline. Yet James Mcavoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, and Nicholas Hoult havened aged at all.
Jessica Chastain plays the leader of an alien race looking for the Phoenix force. Her acting is so robotic and lifeless but that’s the scripts fault too. Jennifer Lawrence checked out of these movies about two movies ago. She is barely in the blue makeup and her role is so small it doesn’t even matter. Another character problem is that the audience is supposed to feel for Jean and Cyclops but we’ve only known them for two movies now and it’s not enough time to establish a bond with them as we know them. In the first X-men movies we knew and evolved with Jean and Cyclops for three movies in depth.
The final fight deals with magneto and Professor Xavier team trying to stop/save Jean. There’s a scene in a train we’re the government captures all the mutants. All the mutants defend themselves in a very impressive scene. All the mutants showcase their powers. Then the aliens after the Phoenix fight and it’s very well done. It's the best filmed scene in the movie. Then Jean wakes up and fights Jessica Chastain. It’s ok for a final fight with Jean showcasing the Phoenix powers and Sophie Turner does a good job but it’s insignificant compared to the train scene and an anticlimactic finale. Jean sacrifices herself and the movie has voiceover from jean about being reborn. This is a terrible way to end the long standing X-men franchise. Since Disney now owns Fox and the X-men franchise they will be rebooted in the MCU at some point. So the Fox owned X-men movies peter out with no way to be reborn like the Phoenix suggests. But the opening and closing fight scenes do bring some entertainment. 🍔🍔
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