Spoilers Dark PhoeniX - Review and Discussion Thread

[OCD Geek]

Rotten tomatoes has kind of killed my enthusiasm to see that dumb movie. I remember a few years ago I saw the rating for Hook was like in the 20s or 30s and that surprised me because I loved that movie.

What is a dumb/bad movie that actually might be good.

I use Rotten Tomatoes to weed out the crap and find that the dumb but fun movies like The Craft, The 'Burbs, Home Alone, the first Brendan Fraser Mummy movie, Friday the 13th Parts IV & VI, etc. tend to find me easily via word-of-mouth. Rotten Tomatoes isn't the be all end all of what you should watch, but it is a massive, massive help.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Man, we used to have the worse movie review guy in our local paper who didn't get genre stuff at all back before the net.

I like Metacritic myself which is based on the scores given to movies not just thumbs up/down and checking where the outliers are. A movie that has a mix of 90s and 10s or whatever is likely more interesting than one that gets nothing but 50/60s even if they average to the same.

I do notice that a movie's fate sometimes seems to be cemented before it ever comes out. Some movies seem to gather a dogpile of either good or bad buzz right from the get go that I'm not sure is always fair.

 

[Campe]

How did people decide what to see before Rotten Tomatoes???

I feel such shame to later learn movies I liked as a kid had bad reviews and box office...
Obvious Sarcasm...

I get your point. But as others have said, it’s just a data point. First, while I’ve enjoyed to varying degrees all the X-movies, trailers for this one just fell flat for me. And Apocalypse, while I still enjoyed somewhat, was lesser on that scale. But because of the love for the series, I still thought it might be a fun way to spend the afternoon. The RT score, just made me decide that it wasn’t an afternoon I wanted to spend $12 to go see this in the theater. Plus popcorn and a beer. It just made more sense for me to enjoy from the comfort of my own home, watching on my 60” 4K display and not spend upwards of $30 to go to a movie by myself that I might kinda sorta enjoy. Maybe.

I just didn’t feel like typing that all out in the first place.

 

[OCD Geek]

The other problem besides the bad reviews and dull trailers were the clips that Fox released. Hellboy had one boring ass clip officially released to tease the movie. Dark Phoenix had like ten. All really, really dull.

 

[Starbreaker]

I've actually found myself mostly agreeing with Rotten Tomatoes over the years. I pretty much like anything that's 70%+ and the 60-70% can go either way for me. I've never seen a movie with a rotten score in the past 5 years or so that I've enjoyed immensely.

 

[JD]

It's definitely looking like this is going to be either a Disney+ watch or an Amazon rental for me. I was already starting to kind iffy on seeing this in the theaters, but the reviews have pretty much settled it for me.
I was looking back at my posts in the other thread, and I actually was really excited for this after the first trailer, but my enthusiasm has actually lessened since then, which is the opposite of how I usually go.

 

[Dick Whitman]

To be clear I have no real emotional investment in this movie. I got a free pass because Fathom Events screwed up my showing of the DS9 documentary and I missed the beginning. But I would have seen it away.

Maybe it’s an age thing. I am 40 Rotten Tomatoes is a non entity to me.

Someone mentioned many films have good or bad buzz before release. That is what bothers me. I have seen a number of movies I did not like. No big deal. I like finding out myself. But everything is either the greatest thing ever or horrible now. When truth is most stuff is actually very average.

 

[DonIago]

Given that I started reading Classic X-Men right before the Dark Phoenix saga kicked into high gear, I won't even pretend I'm not invested in this movie. That Last Stand so failed to give the arc the weight it deserved just made this film even more of a "this is a chance to do this story the right way".

I'm 44 and I will very much check RT if I'm on the fence about a movie. I saw The Hobbit films because I enjoyed them even though they weren't getting great reviews. I haven't seen a number of movies that my friends say are cool because they have bad reviews. There are movies with tremendously good reviews that I haven't seen because they're not of interest to me personally.

But firstly, RT is a gathering point for reviews if I want to read a number of them easily, and secondly, it makes an effort to provide a consensus, which I appreciate.

After that I'd probably go by what Ebert said for any movie released when he was alive (though to be sure I had my variances with him), because the man not only knew film but loved it. I highly recommend listening to his audio commentaries for any movies on which they're available. It saddens me that I haven't found a reviewer I respect to the same degree since his death.

CNET gave DP a fairly positive review, but I don't exactly trust their judgment on such matters.

 

[Campe]

I'm 39 and I trust RT. Do I agree with their consensus all the time? Of course not. But, being a semester and a half from completing a Masters Program and having a six-week old, my me time is very precious. I may love Dark Phoenix. I'm just choosing not to see it in the theater.

 

[Noname Given]

Essentially, this is in the same ballpark as Fan4stic.

Wow - I honestly hope it's not that bad - have tickets to see it with my usual group on Saturday. (And I AM huge FF fan, but yeah, I skipped Fan4stic in theaters once I saw the previews and promos; and was barely able to stick with and watch it all the way through when it landed on HBO.)

 

[thribs]

I never trust those tomatoes. Some of my favourite movies have had low scores from them.

 

[Dick Whitman]

I am not much for writing reviews. Nor taking others reviews too seriously either. So I am certainly consistent and not hypercritical on that. I do not feel my individual opinion is much value to others on what is just subjective tastes.

That said, first impressions. For a story of its huge reputation and scope of the source I can see why some would feel underwhelmed. This is a much more a personal story among the core characters. I thought it really works on that. Better than many of the other films. The X-men films always introduce new members at the expense of the existing characters. There is none of that here. No gloried cameos that mess up existing film continuity. This is the core team, family which started in First Class and what we were left with in Apocalypse. No newbies.

The biggest surprise to me is Simon Kinberg is a very solid action director. That may be due tto support of his second unit and stunt crews. But regardless there are some really solid scenes in this. Which are better than the overall story. A story which is solid on character dynamics and team action. This is really the only film other than First Class where we see the X-men working together as a team.

I do wonder if anything was cut here. I liked that the running time means the story moves along very fast. There should have been more details of Magneto’s island and his status at the end. Overall the ending should habe shown what events mean for the X-men’s place in the world. With the possibility of this being the last of this incarnation it’s left as a bit of a question mark.

My biggest complaint is while this movie specifically says it’s in 1992 it made no difference. When these started in First Class in the 60s, the period clothes, music, and politics meant something. Part of it is that seems so recent. I graduated Middle School that year! I wish they were not so strict with a 10 year time jump with each film. This could have easily been the late 80s. It would have fit with the younger characters being older but still young adults.

So I really did enjoy it. Even though Ii went in with growing skepticism. I got a 8pm ticket because it was the earliest after I was done working. I was shocked to be handed 3D glasses. I can not remember the last time I went to a movie in 3D! Worried it would bother me or distract me. But I was surprised how solid it was. Not necessary but good in action scenes. Past experience is it’s too dark or gives me headaches. But no issues there at all.

 

[StarMan]

I'm 37 and frequently use RT to determine whether or not I'll see a particular movie. 22% is just too low in this instance and I wasn't that enthused to begin with. If it were fresh, I would've seen it.

 

[suarezguy]

FC sucked and DoFP was just OK. If people who thought they were excellent think this is bad there's a chance I'll like it instead but it's not worth checking out for a very long time.

 

[Set Harth]

My local newspaper's movie reviewer disliked it. But this guy often comes off as an aging crank who's made up his mind before seeing a film and generally disrespects the genre. His review of Endgame retroactively trashed Infinity War, despite the fact that there had been (iirc) no hint of such sentiment in his IW review. His Justice League review followed the "dour and depressing" precooked talking points usually applied to the Snyder films, somehow ignoring the fact that the disastrous JL overhaul was in response to that stuff.

When it comes to DP, in what I can only assume was intended to be humor, he spent almost an entire column of the review on the page ranting about Mr. Grey's outdated car model. He referred to the cast as lame ducks, mentioned Kevin Feige by name, and made sure to point out that Disney's inevitable X-Men movies will be more profitable. Of course, none of these things have anything to do with DP's merits as a film...

Jennifer Lawrence is all but checking her watch during her scenes as Mystique.

Such bullshit. This is just lazily copy-and-pasted from Apocalypse rants. Back to the den, geek.

 

[M.A.C.O.]

And the Deadpool movies and Legion were great spin-offs that did new and different things. Honestly, Fox's X-Men wasn't the massive failure people make it out to be.

I'd be generous and add the Gifted. Sure, season 2 was a step backwards. But season 1 was a great preamble to the apocalyptic future seen in DOFP.

I plan on doing an X-marathon soon. I'm looking forward to seeing how X3 and XMO hold up after all this time. I found Apocalypse to be utterly drab and boring. Dark Phoenix is more of the same. While doing nothing with the character relationships people want to see/are invested in. No Pietro/Erik revelation, no Mystique/Kurt moment, scant Scott/Jean, no Xavier and Moira. *Sigh*

 

[DonIago]

I'm not sure it's possible to tell a good Dark Phoenix story without a strong Scott/Jean relationship, so that's pretty disappointing.

 

[Ethros]

It's out, this is the review thead, so there will be spoilers now untagged


Just saw it this afternoon, Jesus it's not that bad. Comparing it 2015 Fantastic 4? And X3 was better? Oh come on, don't make me laugh. That's simply really lazy reviewing from people who don't even care anyway. Another reason I don't read reviews anymore, "haters gonna hate" as the kids say. It's hardly a classic and definitely has flaws but just seems a shame so many of you seem to make your minds up without even seeing things for yourself.

Anyway. As I said in the other thread I was just expecting something on the same level as Apocalypse and wasn't expecting any kind of Dark Knight, DOFP, Endgame etc level of popular superhero movie greatness. Shrug, my mindset was- "it's an X-Men movie, I like the X-Men, I enjoyed it." Definitely had it's flaws don't get me wrong, the storyline of the alien bad guys in particular was lame. Who were they, what did they want, god knows. Were they there just to add some spectacle at the end, yep basically. And were the "Magneto henchmen" charatcers nobodies just there to show off a power, have a fight and be totally expendable? Sure, but to be fair that's happened in every X-movie.
Meh I like the characters and actors so I just went along with it and enjoyed it. Yes maybe you should expect better, and notably demand better, but with all the problems this has seem to have had was anyone really expecting this to be any better than say a 6-7/10 movie?


I did really like the scene when she made Xavier walk up the stairs, gruesome.


So I enjoyed it for what it was for the most part.... I will say I hated the ending though. After a 19 year movie franchise it was very very "oh, is that it?" And it doesn't even sync up with the Days of Future Past coda. What's this another timeline? Or does Xavier eventually wind up back at the mansion in charge again (and Beast steps down) anyway? I really hate how bad and lazy the continuity has always been between the (Fo)X-movies.

(so yeah, haha I am kinda finishing moaning about it, but hey at least I've seen it Nah there were some good parts I really enjoyed, I just felt the ending, as in the last few minutes, let it down for me personally)

 

[JD]

I'd be generous and add the Gifted. Sure, season 2 was a step backwards. But season 1 was a great preamble to the apocalyptic future seen in DOFP.

Are The Gifted and Legion supposed to be in the movie universe? Neither of them seem to really fit all that well, especially not Legion.

 

[Set Harth]

But season 1 was a great preamble to the apocalyptic future seen in DOFP.

If you want to look at it that way. But it appears that mutants become known to the general public earlier in The Gifted's timeline. ( Though it is interesting that the final time we see Blink she's throwing portals like in the film. )