...it's the second thing.
Now, anyone who's been a long-time reader of my blog should know that I really don't tend to listen to reviews that aren't my own. But the overall reception to this film has ranged everywhere from "meh" to "It's the worst thing since X3". After viewing the film, personally, I land more in the former category than the latter. Don't get me wrong, of course, it's not good. It's not very close to being what I would consider "good".
The film begins in 1975 with a flashback to young Jean Grey with her mother and father. Traveling down the road, Jean asks for her mother to change the radio station. Her mother refuses, but then the radio switches to another station seemingly of its own accord. Mrs. Grey changes it back, but it soon becomes clear that something else is afoot. Jean begs for quiet and then their car collides into another one. Both of Jean's parents are killed (or so it seems) and she is visited when she wakes up by one Charles Xavier (James McAvoy).
So, to reiterate...Jean's mutant powers activated not because of extreme trauma at an early age, but because her mother basically told her "driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole".
...I am not amused, in case you can't tell.
Spoilers follow on from this point so, if you're actually interested in seeing the film and not being spoiled, turn back now. You have been warned.
But the film picks up in 1992, the space shuttle Endeavor is having some trouble and the X-Men are called in by the President to help. They mount a rescue mission in the Blackbird and all seems well...until the Commander is found to not be among the rescued. The now grown up Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) goes in with Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and tries to contain the atmosphere long enough to rescue the Commander, all the while a solar flare closes in on the ship...and consumes Jean...or rather, she consumes it.
She comes back to Earth no worse for wear, but exceptionally more powerful to the point where the X-Men's scouters can no longer determine her power level. As she begins to exhibit power of a magnitude she hasn't had before (including royally screwing up a Dazzler concert - yes, seriously), strange alien beings that are definitely not the Shi'ar land on Earth and take the appearance of humans. These are the D'Bari which, to the film's credit, were a race of aliens in the 616 Marvel universe. It's just a shame, then, that they're basically the Skrulls without actually being the Skrulls...at least the Skrulls of 616 Marvel, not MCU Marvel.
They show up, claim that their world was destroyed by the Phoenix Force, and receive no real development before being turned into cannon fodder for Jean to wreck psychic death on. They are set up as some big, imposing threat and are apparently resourceful enough to infiltrate the US government in a matter of hours (since the events of the film can't take place over more than three, maybe four days at best) and adapt enough to Earth culture to successfully suss out information about Jean by name but not actually able to fight effectively.
Or be smart enough to know not to challenge Magneto (Michael Fassbender) to a fight inside a metal train car.
There is really so much more than could have been done with them, but wasn't, which is a real shame. Of course, the D'Bari are just a name drop for nerd cred. The real draw here is the dark secret behind Jean Grey's existence - namely that her father is alive! The crash did indeed kill her mother, but not her father. Scared stiff by what had happened, Mr. Grey handed her over to the one person who said they could help her - Xavier. Charles had kept this from Jean...and it turns out she's more than a little pissed off by this.
So, with the D'Bari known as Vuk (Jessica Chastain) on her shoulder to guide her down the path of destruction, it is up to the X-Men and some other people of Magneto's gathered group of mutants to either bring Jean in so that she can be helped, or to kill her for the atrocities she's committed.
Namely for killing Raven (Jennifer Lawrence), which I'm 90% sure was motivated by the wishes of the actress rather than any reason in the film. They do set up a bit with her and Jean being close, but nothing really comes of it other than to set that up and give Beast (Nicholas Hoult) and later Magneto motivation to go after Jean. This highlights a problem that the X-Men films have had since the beginning, namely that - beyond the few core five or six characters - they like to throw in any characters that they can think of with no real development, rhyme, or reason.
Given that the X-Men has a stable of characters to the point where they can operate independently in their own universe away from the rest of Marvel and have no problem (as these films have demonstrated), it's obvious why this would happen. However, the X-Men fan community is a broad and diverse group. These characters have fans, fans who won't like it when you just throw them into a background of a scene or have them gratuitously killed off for no real reason other than you needed a body.
To give an example, Dazzler is in this film as well, played by none other than everyone's favorite pickle jar opening security officer Halston Sage.
She does nothing and her inclusion in the film goes nowhere, despite the fact she was a main team member for several years.
And yes, I know that you cannot realistically have oodles upon oodles of developed characters because we don't have seventeen hours to spend watching a movie. However, with the X-Men franchise being what it is, could they have at least tried? Even the developed characters in this film aren't that great. Magneto being there almost feels like an afterthought, Hank's rage at Charles following Raven's death is believable and well-done (with major props to Nicholas Hoult on that one), but there's just nothing to it. It doesn't go anywhere and at the end, everything appears to have blown over.
The whole ending seems a bit rushed in general, which makes more sense when you learn that the test audiences did not like the ending of the film and so the third act was hastily reshot. I can't imagine what that ending was that was so bad, but I can't say that the ending we got was any better. Namely because it wasn't. The X-Men film franchise which has been going on for nineteen years and twelve films and it's just...over.
And yes, I know that we're still getting New Mutants in 2020. It hardly counts.
This film could have been vastly improved with a part two. Or a part three. I know that wasn't an option (apparently), but the fact is that Dark Phoenix has the same fatal flaw that X-Men 3 had: THE DARK PHOENIX SAGA CANNOT BE TOLD IN JUST ONE MOVIE!
Let me say that again so that everyone can hear it.
THE DARK PHOENIX SAGA CANNOT BE TOLD IN JUST ONE MOVIE!!!
The Dark Phoenix Saga in the comics is quite possibly the most famous of X-Men storylines. Penned by Chris Claremont (the guy who literally wrote the book on the X-Men for decades), it was a sweeping epic that saw the X-Men face one of their greatest challenges to date - having to decide between saving their close friend, their family member, one of the original X-Men members or allowing her to continue unchecked as her power grew and she killed even more sentient life than the one planet she caused the destruction of by supernova. True, it was a story that only took four issues of the comics, but it was so in-depth and well-told that people are still remembering it today. It is, in fact, the very reason why the films have tried to adapt it.Just the same reason that the MCU adapted Civil War despite the fact that it was one of the biggest pieces of garbage ever developed by Marvel Comics and the film version was actually better. Why? Because it was built up to. Infinity War and Endgame worked because they were built up to. But Dark Phoenix? No. Even X-Men 3 was built up to, if only just in X2. X-Men 3 is a far worse movie, but at least it was hinted at and developed within the film.
That being said, X-Men 3 is still worse...but not by much.
What Dark Phoenix should have been was either split over several films to really develop everything so that it didn't feel like a last-minute rush before the Disney deal kicked in, or just eschewing the whole Dark Phoenix Saga entirely. I feel like it was more a desperate attempt by director Simon Kinberg to correct his mistake (he was one of the screenwriters on X-Men 3) than it was to tell a cohesive end to the storyline. Not counting New Mutants, this is the last of the FOX X-Men films. I won't lie, I have never been the biggest fan of them (outside of X2, Logan, and Deadpool) but they've been around for so long and some of them haven't been all that bad.
I can't help but feel a little disappointed, and I know that many others are as well. It is definitely warranted, I can tell you that.
Final thoughts here, however is - why didn't they have Magneto on Asteroid M instead of Genosha? Since they were already in space for part of it, it might have at least given us something cool to go out on.
Dark Phoenix is now in theaters from 20th Century Fox, Marvel Entertainment, and Walt Disney Motion Pictures.
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