For clarification's sake, I don't hate Dark Phoenix (2019). Rather, I am frustrated by the number of times a specific storyline or character arc was set up and foreshadowed in 20th Century Fox's X-Men film franchise, only for the next set of filmmakers or Fox executives to drop the ball once the next movie rolled around. Considering this movie's plethora of production troubles, which continued until its release, the final product isn't half bad...I take that back. It's half bad. As the last Fox-Marvel X-Men film in the long-running series, second to last if you count The New Mutants (2020), this feels like too little, too late. Usually, I wouldn't spoil anything from the film here, but since much of its biggest twists had been shown in the marketing, here we go.
Dark Phoenix adapts the fan-favorite Dark Phoenix Saga storyline from the Marvel comics for the second time in a single movie (unlike the proposed two movies that Fox reportedly had in mind) with hit-and-miss results, much like 2006's X-Men: The Last Stand, which this movie's writer-director, Simon Kinberg, helped write.
The story begins with a monologue by Jean Grey (played by Sophie Turner) talking about something along the lines of what we are as individual members of humanity. Afterward, we see a flashback to 1975 where a young Jean unknowingly unleashes her telekinetic powers during a drive with her parents, ending in tragedy. This kind of introduction scene would have been a significant shock to audiences in 1992 (when most of this film takes place) but has become all too cliched with each subsequent installment.
Fun fact: "Killer Queen" by Queen is briefly heard on the car's radio as Jean's powers manipulate the radio dial, which at the time, made me wonder why I wasn't at home re-watching Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), which was also distributed by Fox and partially helmed by disgraced director Bryan Singer, of the first X-Men films (from 2000 and 2003, respectively) and X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) fame.
Jean's mother dies, and her father gives her away to Professor Charles Xavier, a.k.a. Professor X (played by James McAvoy), and his School for Gifted Youngsters. Flash forward to the 1990s, a period where Professor X should have aged to look more like how Sir Patrick Stewart did in X-Men (2000); the X-Men are called in to save the astronauts of the space shuttle Endeavour after a vast, purple CGI solar flare damages the ship. The X-Men rescue the astronauts, but the now-grownup Jean absorbs the blast, and despite her miraculous survival, she starts losing control of her powers. Consequently, people around her die, the X-Men find themselves divided, Erik Lehnsherr, a.k.a. Magneto (played by Michael Fassbender), finds his way back into the picture, the U.S. Government and military get involved, action set pieces with mutant powers happen, and so on.
If this plot description sounds like that from almost every other X-Men film until that point, it's because it does. This movie's downfall comes from a complete lack of necessity and enthusiasm for telling a new and exciting story, as evidenced by the sheer amount of retreading familiar themes (i.e., the racism metaphors, the Martin Luther King Jr./Malcolm X-style clash of philosophies, the emphasis on hope for the future and social acceptance, etc.). Not that I didn't find a few positives within this bland mixed bag of a film. Unfortunately, not all that glitters is gold.
First off, Turner does her best to give humanity to Jean Grey, even though her dialogue and character motivations/actions are otherwise generic and half-baked. Fassbender continues to deliver Magneto's signature gravitas and subdued rage, which is surprising because it's easy to see that Fassbender has gotten bored with the character, as evidenced by this line which he delivers to Professor X:
"You're always sorry, Charles. And there's always a speech. But nobody cares anymore."
The same can be said for McAvoy. While he delivers predictably solid work as Professor X, his line delivery here feels off from his previous performances as the character, for he seems less composed and more emotional here, which could be attributed to either Kinberg's direction or McAvoy's growing impatience during the extensive (and expensive) reshoots. That said, the last scene which involves Xavier and Magneto playing a game of chess, a callback to the end of X-Men, and a scene from 2011's X-Men: First Class (the audience's introduction to McAvoy and Fassbender's interpretations of the characters), put a smile on my face.
Thematically speaking, there are several attempts at exploring psychological themes such as memories and trauma through a psychological thriller lens, which works in theory, but not under Kinberg's inexperienced direction. On the technical side, parts of Hans Zimmer's score brought the grandiose I was desperately looking for in what this quasi-sci-fi psychological thriller wanted to be, but the rest of it got lost amidst this movie's generic mediocrity. The CGI looks fine for a $100-$125 million film, but not for one that had a reported total budget of $200 million, including the reshoots. By comparison, Jean's Phoenix effects don't look too different from those seen in Marvel Studios' Captain Marvel (2019), also set in the '90s. However, the latter had a better story and more interesting characters to back the visuals. The action sequences in the third act are exciting enough and somewhat make up for the lack of action in the first two acts. However, they are not enough to deliver an emotionally satisfying conclusion to characters whom the audience had barely spent enough time to invest in. On that note, here are the negatives.
In the first act, the space rescue sequence doesn't feel earned because there was no foreshadowing or buildup towards such a moment in the previous films save for a last-minute tease at the end of 2016's X-Men: Apocalypse. The same can be said for the X-Men's comic book-accurate yellow and dark blue costumes as they feel less like a comic book fans' dream come true and more like a last-ditch effort at providing fan service without considering the story's overall continuity. Most of the cast from X-Men: First Class phones in their performances, but none more often than Jennifer Lawrence, who was my favorite actor from that movie. It's such a shame that her character of Raven/Mystique isn't given the same amount of character depth here compared to First Class and Days of Future Past before being accidentally killed off by an overwhelmed Jean. Also, the fact that she doesn't bother to reprise her First Class line "Mutant and proud" to Hank McCoy, a.k.a. Beast (played by Nicholas Hoult), is a bitter pill to swallow. Although, on a positive note, at least one of her lines sounded genuine (it is overheard during a conversation between Mystique and Beast about moving on to better things, ironically enough). Jessica Chastain fills in this movie's extra-terrestrial antagonist role, but her character feels so dull and unnecessary that her talents are ultimately wasted here. Speaking of characters, some of their decisions angered me, namely Professor X's suppressing of Jean's traumatic memories, insistence on controlling her abilities, and lying to her about her father's fate. While understandable from an adoptive father figure's perspective, the execution of the said scenes comes across as emotionally controlling and manipulative, so much so that he became more of a villain than Chastain's character. In fact, by the time the third act began, I found myself rooting for Magneto instead of Professor X. Again, this may have come from Kinberg's inexperience as a director of feature-length movies, for had this been executed in a less melodramatic manner, perhaps I wouldn't have felt as frustrated as I did.
Part of the blame for this debacle lies with Fox, especially with their failure to organically plan out future installments in their flagship cinematic university combined with their overestimating of the First Class and Apocalpyse cast members and their bankability. In addition, the diminishing returns at the domestic and worldwide box office post-Days of Future Past and Deadpool (2016) and Disney's acquisition of Fox's film and television assets (including the film rights to the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, and Deadpool) add insult to injury.
Overall, Dark Phoenix is a disappointing sendoff to Fox's then-nineteen-year-old X-Men franchise, and I am sad that this is their final official X-Men film as I believe 2017's Logan was and should have been their last release, but in the words of James Stewart, "One man's sunset is another man's dawn." Like most movie buffs, I am more excited than ever to see Disney/Marvel Studios' take on the X-Men within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Ironically, the third act involves a special military outfit with the letters "MCU" on their armbands. It appears that Kinberg was begrudgingly taking a shot at Disney before he hands the franchise off to people who would do a much better job at accurately depicting them on the big screen. Until that day comes, however, the perfect metaphor for Fox's attempts at a successful Dark Phoenix Saga adaptation is this film's final shot: a firey phoenix burning bright in the distance as the rest of the world goes about their business. In other words, wasted potential for an audience who has apparently given up and moved on.
Final Score: 5 out of 10
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