Film Review: Dark Phoenix

Despite me not having been much of a fan of X-Men series, it is interesting to look back and see how they made their mark on superhero films, and how it was both reflected in other movies that followed and retooled within the franchise to compete with later successes. Its place in the modern pop culture landscape is arguably the most interesting about these movies, certainly far more compelling to think about than anything regarding the actual movies themselves. And I have to say, it is a tad bittersweet to see a property eventually getting sucked into the Disney machine where it likely won’t have much distinction from other films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but hey, I would love to be wrong. Still, it is comical that this long running franchise had to go down in such a sad manner.

So, yeah – big shocker – Dark Phoenix isn’t very good, and it’s about as not-very-good in a way that a lot of the X-Men movies are not-very-good. If anything, the biggest crime this movie commits is its sheer indifference and the lack of any willingness to do anything remotely interesting. While the fate of New Mutants is still a bit up in the air, Dark Phoenix marks the end of a significant and important franchise in the genre, and for their final movie – one that purposefully went through reshoots at a stage where the filmmakers knew this would be the end – it doesn’t end with a bang, it doesn’t take any wild swings, it doesn’t go-for-broke, and above all, it lacks any real sense of finality.

Like I said, it’s not good in the same way many of these movies have been. It touches on too many characters without creating any balance, it rehashes plot points and character beats from previous movies (especially The Last Stand, which writer/director, Simon Kinberg, had a co-writing credit on), the action isn’t particularly inspired, the story is filled with long stretches of monotonous monologues and exposition. We’ve seen all of this before.

Though, if I had to give a basic synopsis, it’s simple enough. Inexplicably taking place in the 90s, the X-Men are in a position where they are beloved by the public, Magneto (Michael Fassbender) is exiled on an island with other mutants causing no harm, everything seems great. Except, after a space rescue takes a turn, Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) finds herself hit by a cosmic force that gives her immense power, which she quickly loses control of. When the powers make her lash out, killing a team member, she runs off and tries to reconnect with her past and make sense of what is going on, but things don’t go quite as planned, and she ends up under the influence of the mysterious Vuk (Jessica Chastain), who seemingly intends on helping Jean take control of her newfound powers.

I can see why Kinberg wanted to take another crack at this story. Chris Claremont and John Byrne’s “The Dark Phoenix Saga” is one of the great comic book arcs in Marvel history, if not comic book history. However, everyone seems to keep forgetting the whole “saga” part, the story is meant to be a sprawling, weird, and emotional epic, and now both of Kinberg’s attempts have been rather underwhelming and not even remotely close at capturing that story’s magic. This is only our second time seeing this younger version of these characters since we first met them in X-Men: Apocalypse, which I highly doubt anyone remembers a thing about at this point. It’s hard to care when you barely know these characters, and they’re almost immediately thrust into this convoluted story.

I suppose a compliment that I can give the film is that I wasn’t bored. If anything, I was kind of amused by how completely unengaged everyone in the film seemed to be. Although, I will say there are a couple of scenes that are compelling, if only because the actors are good enough to keep you watching, and the climactic action sequence on a train was pretty fun, even if there are some missed opportunities within it. The filmmakers got a rare second chance to do justice to a great storyline, and delivers it with a mild shrug. There’s not much more to it than that. I’m not even mad at the movie for not being good, I’m actually sad that this is how it went down in the end, after all these years. It feels like kicking someone who is already down, I’m getting no pleasure out of this, I just wanna forget about this whole experience, and wash my hands of it.  I suppose fans will just have to wait another ten years before Marvel Studios tries this story.