Spoilers Dark PhoeniX - Review and Discussion Thread

[Tosk]

I guess I am old fashioned, I love seeing movies in a theater on a big screen.

I don't think that is old fashioned particularly. Everyone has preferences. I personally have never subscribed to the "You gotta see it on the big screen!" mentality, but I don't begrudge anyone else feeling that way. I hate "the audience experience" and find it to be distracting.

 

[Beagleman]

C+ Because I'm really feeling generous today.
Let's see, Origins and Apocalypse are worse, sadly that's it for me, this one is on par with Last Stand, yuk.
It was all there, the cast, the budget and it was wasted. Simon Kinberg is no director, the cinematography is stale and boring, shots and sequences are seemingly cut without any understanding of flow or purpose which makes half the movie tedious and/or outright ugly. Great cast, some good character moments, some nice Mutant fights (badly shot as they may be) and a Zimmer score, that's it. The (main) X-Men go out with more of a whimper than a bang.

 

[Pauln6]

I think people who are claiming this is terrible are saying so on principle without ever having any intention of seeing the movie. They should be required to answer three questions before being allowed to vote.

It was enjoyable. Some if the choreography of the fight scenes was very well done and it was nice to see the characters using their powers a bit more imaginatively. There were lots of nods to the comics and to last stand that I actually enjoyed.

On the down side, like most of the Xmen movies, the movie doesn't build to a satisfying finale. The villains, while intriguing, are almost a footnote.

The weakest part of the movie is the characterisation, particularly Beast and Storm. Sophie does an ok job but her Jean lacks the hypnotic allure that Famke Janssen had.

I do wish Charles had at least acknowledged that they are where they are because he tried to avoid making the same mistakes that his future self warned him about but things keep changing.

Not the worst end to the franchise. More Dazzler next time please.

 

[Pauln6]

Several critics are calling it the worst X-Men movie ever. And Wolverine Origins exists.

Nope. I've seen Wolverine Origins once. This one I would happily watch again.

The mistake of the franchise to me was moving too quickly from the dark low key mysterious Xmen with focus on the characters at the start to flash bang wallop Xmen with focus on Charles and Magneto.

 

[Booji]

C+

it wasn't a bad movie. Just kinda boring. All the performances were alright, except for little girl Jean. That was cringe worthy. The Batphone being disconnected made me giggle. MCU Skrulls are cooler. I kinda dug the ending. It was an ok flick, but predictable. I'm sad to see this incarnation of the X-Men ending.

 

[Noname Given]

After seeing it, I really don't understand why a lot of folks seem to feel this is the worst X-Men film in the series when crap like Wolverine: Origins and X-Men 3: The Last Stand <--- You really want to talk about a crap film? They soft rebooted the X-Men franchise after it.

I also thought this film was much better then the previous installment, X-Men: Apocalypse where you had rushed character arcs (looking at Warren Worthington/Angel); character motivations and actions, and hell an overall story that didn't make a lot of sense.

In this film, I thought all the character actions and motivations fit; the story was coherent and understandable, and the action that was there, was there to serve the story. That last part said, if the rumors are true and they reshot the ending to make it 'more personal'/less 'actiony' because some felt the original ending was too like 'Captain Marvel' and involved Jean and the Alien that 'sucked part of her power' actually fighting in space (with Jean Grey probably taking out that large spaceship the D'Bari were using to follow the Phoenix Force <---- IMO THAT was a big mistake as yeah, them just floating and having (I guess) a 'test of wills' until Jean prevailed, was <Yawn>. I would have loved to see the two Phoenix's fight each other with their Phoenix abilities on display on screen.
^^^
(And also, while I did say the story was overall there and easy to follow - if the Alien leader had the ability to absorb the Phoenix power as was shown, it does beg the question as to WHY she didn't do it earlier as they had been following said force for some time <--- So yeah, that didn't make a lot of sense.)

The last thing I'll mention is that since the story did take place in 1992 - IF you posit the original Singer X-men film events occur in some fashion 8 years later (in 2000) - Magneto must have had A LOT of stress as he ages a hell of a lot over that time.

My grade: B+ -- and no, this was hardly the worst X-Men film ever made; and it was also nowhere near as bad as FOX's Fant4stic, (now there is a truly crap superhero film) which is another film some have compared it to. YMMV.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Lauren Shuler Donner has disowned Dark Phoenix, as well as Apocalypse and New Mutants in a now-deleted tweet.

https://www.comicbookmovie.com/x-me...xSdklhrmxJ14DuFJkbhPmczqP6-Mlcfhl4U737EVtRpXI

 

[Tenacity]

It's interesting that praise for this movie seems to hang on "they've made worse."

It's a generally enjoyable movie, without a lot of high notes. I don't regret seeing it, but it's just sort of there.

 

[STEPhon IT]

For the movie I thought it needed some additional set up from the previous movies to make this one relevant. I'm still struggling to understand how Marvel Girl's powers could be subjected to Phoenix powers??? Oh well, the X-Men movies were a mess from the beginning and this along with the rest doesn't have much of a cohesiveness that I praise the real Marvel Cinematic Universe. It is what is, a desperate film trying to be relevant but hopefully now after Disney has monopolized Hollywood we can finally get an X-Men which works in the MCU and hopefully forget about these dreadful X-Men movies.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Dark Phoenix Pitch Meeting

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[Gryffindorian]

I give it a C+. I don't know why Sophie Turner, who I'm sure is a fine young actress, gets all the flak for her portrayal of Jean Grey. Is she miscast? I say no more than Tye Sheridan is for playing Cyclops. To me, these characters, not to mention Nightcrawler, are underdeveloped. You have only the writers to blame. First Class and Days of Future Past were the best in the X-series, followed by Apocalypse. The movie itself was fine, but for a finale, to quote Rotten Tomatoes, "It lands with a thud."

 

[thribs]

The ageing thing never bothered me. That’s very comic book like

 

[Pauln6]

The ageing thing never bothered me. That’s very comic book like

They could have given Fassbender greyer hair though. He's meant to about 65. Beast is shape changing so it's fine for him to look young.

 

[Dick Whitman]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ho...s-dismal-x-men-franchise-finale-plans-1216859

I think this is an interesting read. The release date changes were only to please James Cameron with giving what he wanted for Battle Angel’s release.

Shuler Donner’s real involvement has been a mystery for a while. This reveals she has not real role since Days of Future Past. Her deleted Tweet is hilarious because she does not mention Deadpool or Logan either which all she had is a credit... but were success! LOL

I would not be surprised if her contract means her name is on any future Marvel films with X-men. Think of Michael Uslan’s credit on every Batman.

 

[Set Harth]

They could have given Fassbender greyer hair though.

I've got to assume he's coloring it by this point in the timeline.

 

[Pauln6]

I've got to assume he's coloring it by this point in the timeline.

He must get his dye helicoptered in to his remote island.

 

[Set Harth]

He probably brought a lot with him.

Or it's secreted by one of his mutant friends.

 

[thribs]

Seeing Alara as Dazzler was fun. About time that character was in a movie.

 

[Crystalline Entity]

B. The end of an era. Didn't stick the landing, but not bad. I admit my biases may be giving this movie a pass.

Overall I actually enjoyed it very much, but the criticisms are on the money - in particular, that this story retraces XM3 to an alarming degree. I only have a passing familiarity with the Dark Phoenix saga in the comics, but I know there was a heavy alien component, so without that, or cutting it back severely like here, perhaps it's no wonder both Last Stand and Dark Phoenix take very similar routes in setting up Jean's fall.

Of course, Dark Phoenix comes at it from the opposite direction: instead of making Prof X/Stewart look really bad in XM3 - to the point where him being killed was almost justified - here Prof X/MacAvoy does it for the best of reasons. But man do events spin out of control fast in this movie. That's what I liked about Dark Phoenix: unlike Apocalypse where his threat was built up way too slowly, here things unravel so quickly, you get swept up in the course of events.

One thing I found striking, especially in comparison to the long run of MCU movies, is how much more technologically minimalist this movie world is. Except for the X-jet, there really is nothing out of this world, except for the D'Hari of course. Very zombie like.

And this was either darkly humorous or a serious character screw-up: first Magneto gives a thoughtful/interesting answer as to how he gave up violence ('I just stopped'). Then as soon as he finds out Jean killed Mystique, never mind: "I'm going to kill her!" Oh yeah, and Hank too?! I know you needed to liven up Beast more, but that was not the way to do it.

Ultimately this movie really suffers from insufficient build up of Cyclops and Jean's relationship - Dark Phoenix should have been the climax of a new X-men trilogy, not the next movie after Apocalypse.

In retrospect, despite some terrific films (I count XM2, XM:FC, and DoFP among the best comic movies overall) the X-men movieverse limited itself too much in terms of its main plot elements (human vs. mutant) and focusing on Xavier/Magneto/Logan to the detriment of other characters. Well, we'll see what Disney has in store, but I will still always be a fan of Fox's X-men movie series!

 

[The Wormhole]

It's not as bad as everyone's saying it is, but it's not really all that great either. Mostly my reaction when it was all over was "so that's it?" A lot of it is rather anticlimactic or just doesn't really go anywhere.

And really, despite playing the titular character, Sophie Turner really doesn't do much besides give empty glares throughout. Hell, when it came time for the heart-to-heart between Xavier and Jean at the films climax, they use the child actress as young Jean instead.