Dark Phoenix

So I am willing to admit when I'm wrong. Last year, I think I said on multiple occasions that I doubted this movie was actually going to happen. It was supposed to come out around this time last year, then it was supposed to come out in February, and then it was further delayed to June. It was delayed so much and it was coming out around the same time as the Fox/Disney merger that I just assumed that Disney would just scrap it. And I was wrong. Should Disney have just scrapped this one? Yeah probably.

Dark Phoenix is the final installation of the X-men franchise under the Fox Studios name. The Disney/Fox merger has brought all these characters back under the direct control of Marvel and while it has not been formally announced, it is likely the last time these characters will be played by the actors who have been playing these roles since 2011. As someone who actually really liked this franchise, it bums me out that it ultimately went out this way and the X-men Franchise is really looked down upon. I'll talk a little bit more about that near the end, but while this movie is not nearly as bad as some people might say it is, it is not the ending that the Fox Studios run of the X-men really deserved.

The first problem with this movie is that it takes some liberties with the paths these characters were all on at the end of X-men Apocalypse. Its not the worst application of the X-men team, it just felt kind of disjointed from the ending we just saw, as if Apocalypse didn't really happen. But Apocalypse wasn't very good so that's okay.

At the start of this movie, the X-men are a full fledged superhero team. They are well received by the general public, Charles Xavier (played again by James McEvoy) has a direct line to the White House, and they are a fully fledged team the way they really haven't been I'd argue since the original trilogy.

Every other installation in the rebooted timeline (First Class on) always feels like they're getting the gang together, or they're getting the gang back together. This one, they're wearing matching outfits, they're going on missions, it's all very formal like it hasn't been since the original trilogy, which I don't mind. It's cheesy and its quite a jump from the events of Days of Future Past and Apocalypse where mutants have been tearing down landmarks and attacking Presidents, but it's an interesting take nonetheless.

The team is led by Mystique or Raven (played by Jennifer Lawrence), Beast (played by Nicholas Hoult), Cyclops (Tye Sheridan), Quicksilver (played by Evan Peters), Storm (played by Alexandra Shipp), Nightcrawler (played by Kodi Smit-McPhee), and Jean Grey (played by Sophie Turner).

In the first sequence, something goes wrong, and Jean is mysteriously affected by a solar flare that was threatening some astronauts they go into space to save. It's not until later that she starts to realize that she is growing in power and nobody, not even Charles Xavier knows how to help her.

And honestly, the entire movie is asking the question of "what do we do about Jean?" There's Charles who believes she can still be saved, then there's Eric/Magneto (played by Michael Fassbender) who believes the best way to deal with that immense power is to kill Jean. There's also this other weird faction with Jessica Chastain's character who have their own agenda.

And while I think I sort of understand what Simon Kinberg was trying to go for as writer and coming into his directorial debut, I have to say its a pretty sloppy mess all around. I actually think there is a lot more possibility in this movie than people give it credit for and with some changes and a bigger budget, it could have been really good, but as it is, it's trying to cram the Dark Phoenix Saga into a two hour movie with a rushed background leading up to a disappointing ending.

I have to be honest, I am not as familiar with the Dark Phoenix Saga comic book run, but I have a general idea that it is about Jean Grey, a beloved character in the franchise, developing immense power from some means and driving the X-men into a cerebral battle of multiple personalities, and creating a splinter in the group around this beloved character.

Even if I'm not hitting the right points in that story, it is clear that the live action movies have not done nearly enough set up to bring Jean Grey in as a character that would see her corruption fracture the team the way it could. Even if that's not the point from the comics, that's clearly what they were trying to do with this movie and it doesn't make sense because we just haven't had enough time to get invested in Sophie Turner's Jean Grey.

Aside from all the workers that got laid off from the Disney/Fox merger, Sophie Turner was probably the actor that got screwed the most because she got a great opportunity to play an iconic character but the two movies she's in, she's either a side character that isn't given the time she needs for us to invest in Apocalypse (and the movie is bad), or she stars in a rushed story where the script is bad and everyone else really wants out (also the movie is bad too).

She's not a bad actress, she just isn't given much as far as the script goes and comparatively to McEvoy and Fassbender who know their characters well and are veteran actors who know how to still give a good performance, Sophie Turner didn't really know what to do with this.

And that's the other thing, the Dark Phoenix story was such a weird way to end a rebooted franchise that mostly centered on the friendship between Charles and Eric. Those two end up being supporting characters in their own franchise, and while they give a good performance, they aren't the focus.

An example of how this movie had some initially good ideas was taking the character of Charles Xavier and reminding us that, at least the McEvoy version, he is a bit arrogant. He's enjoying the spotlight and there's a decent scene where he says he would take the world seeing them as heroes over being seen as monsters. I had a flashback to the Charles Xavier from First Class who was trying to bed women after chugging a boot of beer. I like what they at least tried to do with Charles and McEvoy has played him pretty consistently this entire franchise.

And then there's Fassbender.

It does not matter that bringing Magneto back never really makes sense. It doesn't matter that Eric is a confirmed survivor of the Holocaust and this movie takes place in the 90's making him about 70 when he looks, at worst, in his fifties. He just continues to bring it every time he's on screen and it's entertaining as hell.

Again, they kind of forget a lot of the actions of the last two films, hit the reset button, and put Eric on an island so he can live peacefully with mutants, but even that seems like a much more interesting movie than this movie ended up being. I'd love to see that. I think that might be a reference to some kind of story line in the X-men comics, but I'd watch a whole Disney plus show of Michael Fassbender's Magneto hanging out on a commune mutant island just because he sells it.

Even Jennifer Lawrence, who has been checked out of these movies probably since Days of Future Past, still manages to make me understand what they tried to do in this movie.

Raven is presented as a maternal figure to the new class of X-men who are growing into their roles as the main team and this pairs well with Charles's vanity. Does it go very far? No, but again, I have to wonder what this movie would have been like without some of the external factors. One of them being, Jennifer Lawrence was just waiting for the moment she gets axed off in this movie. I know that's a spoiler, but the trailer made it kind of clear and we all kind of knew it was gonna happen.

It's a credit to Lawrence as an actress that I was still somewhat interested in this character who has been in the franchise for a while, but there are still the choices that clearly were made because Lawrence is a big name actress who didn't want to get into blue make up a second longer than she had to.

And that kind of goes along with a lot of other choices. It's the same reason Magneto is in this film and continues to have sympathetic stories written for him. It's for the money shots and the draw to the theaters.

For example, right at the beginning, there's a scene where they're getting into a jet to go into space to save some astronauts. Why are they taking a jet in the 90's to go into space? Eh who cares, it looks cool. I even asked, you've got the team I listed above, why are all they going? What is Beast or Mystique gonna do in space? They use Nightcrawler, Quicksilver, Jean, and even Cyclops to use a cool little cannon, but why is Storm there? Eh, who cares, it looks cool.

On a side note, don't think that Storm, Nightcrawler, and even Quicksilver are in this movie because they're interesting characters. They're just there to fill out the team. Even Cyclops feels a little ham fisted in there even though they half heartedly try to develop the relationship between him and Jean. 

And that's the overall theme of this movie. There is a lot more I could talk about like the pointlessness of the Jessica Chastain character, the fact this movie looks like the budget was slashed about a billion times, the fact that the writing is bad, it doesn't matter because the movie is boring, and none of it felt earned. Everyone, no matter how good of actors they are feel like they're going through the motions because the script is being rewritten every day and the scuttlebutt is that Disney is buying Fox and none of this matters.

The really sad thing is, there's still just enough in there to make me sad that this movie didn't get more people who care about it. I remember the trailer being somewhat interesting but it just felt doomed because it was in the midst of the merger details.

I remember the performances given by McEvoy, Fassbender, and Lawrence (in First Class and Days of Future Past), and I remember how good this franchise could be. And I think about how this studio already had the blue prints of a bad Phoenix movie and they found another way to make it bad again.

I do take issue with the argument that the Fox/Disney merger is a good thing for fans of X-men because it throws the control of the franchise into the hands of Disney and Kevin Fiege. But I'm disappointed, because even in the bad times, I knew when an X-men movie came out, it was going to be different.

Taking the totality of the X-men franchise, I think Fox did a pretty good job with the franchise. Are there bad movies and missteps? Yes. But even if you don't count Logan and the Deadpool movies (which I do personally), this franchise is still full of pretty good, and if not good memorable movies. X-men, X2, First Class (my personal underrated favorite), Days of Future Past, and The Wolverine (? I think?), were all critically praised films.

Were there bad movies? Absolutely. I would say though that the bad X-men movies were at worst boring. Apocalypse, Origins, and The Wolverine? were forgettable. And even their worst like The Last Stand still had entertaining moments pieced with "its so bad its good" retrospect. And if you count Logan and the Deadpool movies, you still have a franchise that had more good than bad.

So while others say that they're excited for the X-men to join the MCU, I'm bummed that X-men will likely conform to the manufactured Disney standard of Superhero films when it is clear from other super hero films that different it becoming more and more profitable. X-men could be entertaining with the MCU, but I worry it will have the same feel under Disney as the other Marvel properties when I'd rather a franchise be flawed but interesting than standardized good.

But Phoenix also disappoints because there was enough potential there for me to still have thoughts, even though it seems Fox and Disney just want it all to be over as soon as possible.

I saw Dark Phoenix on a plane and I think that was the best way to see it. Free. Don't spend money on it, and I would hardly recommending spending time on it, but I do think there are enough redeeming qualities to make it at least a little interesting as the disappointing end of an era.

But those are my thoughts on Dark Phoenix. What did you think? Did you wait six months to see it like I did? Have you still not seen it? What are your thoughts on the X-men franchise as a whole? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading!