Sophie Turner and Jessica Chastain in Twentieth Century Fox’s DARK PHOENIX. Photo Credit: Courtesy Twentieth Century Fox.
30-second review: There’s something off about nearly every element of Dark Phoenix. The dialogue is overly-written to the point that you can predict a line before it’s said, the performances are unmotivated, the story is too familiar, and the action scenes lack stakes. However, they’re also not off enough to be interesting. The biggest problem with the film is that it’s bland.
It’s unfortunate considering the “Dark Phoenix” storyline is a staple of the X-Men canon. Sophie Turner and James McAvoy try to do something interesting with the material, but they’re hindered by the movie’s inability to bring anything new to the table. We’ve seen it all before. For the superhero genre to stay alive it needs innovative. Dark Phoenix is stuck in the past.
Where to watch Dark Phoenix: Available to buy or rent on Amazon.
Full review below ?
Full disclosure: I haven’t read and am not familiar with the X-Men comics. What I do know is that the Dark Phoenix saga — also explored in X-Men: The Last Stand — is one of the series’ biggest storylines. The main crux of it finds Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) turned into a conduit for a powerful alien energy force that corrupts her and turns her into an unstoppable and uncontrollable force.
In Dark Phoenix, written and directed by Simon Kinberg — who wrote three previous X-Men movies — Jean and the other X-Men are tasked with rescuing a shuttle full of astronauts after their spacecraft is disabled by a mysterious floating solar flare. They’re successful in their mission, but Jean is nearly killed when the energy reaches the shuttle with her still in it. However, instead of killing her, she absorbs the energy and returns back to Earth with the other X-Men.
The film, which takes place ten years after the events of X-Men: Apocolypse, sees the X-Men living in a world where mutants and humans now live in harmony — mostly thanks to the work Dr. Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) has done to bridge the divide by using the X-Men to protect humanity. At one point, he even references the term “superhero.”
The movie tries to create a Civil War-esque divide between Xavier and Mystique/Raven (Jennifer Lawrence), who thinks that the work they’re doing to be heroes in the eyes of the humans is demeaning as they risk their lives to save theirs. And it’s an interesting theme, but the movie explores it with no passion — and the performances, in turn, have no passion either.
The main storyline, though, follows Jean as she struggles to control her newfound powers that push her to destructive ends, especially as she learns the truth about her past. Early on — and spoiled in the trailers — one of her destructive spells leads to the death of Mystique, which creates a fissure between the X-Men. On one side, there’s Charles, Scott/Cyclops (Tye Sheridan), Ororo/Storm (Alexandra Shipp), and Kurt/Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee). On the other, there’s Erik/Magneto (Michael Fassbender) and Hank/Beast (Nicholas Hoult) — they both seek revenge on Jean for the death of Raven — along with Erik’s minions.
However, like everything else in the movie, the team turning on each other is half-hearted and doesn’t feel rooted in anything tangible. The movies up to this point haven’t laid the groundwork for us to care about Jean’s fate — or the fate of anyone on the team.
A more interesting storyline involves a shape-shifting alien race that has come to earth to harness the energy in Jean and, in turn, claiming the Earth as their own. Jessica Chastain, who plays the human form of the lead alien, does her best to make her character a compelling villain. But the storyline feels secondary and means to the final battle that, while entertaining, lacks stakes.
Dark Phoenix is likely the last X-Men movie in this form as the property is absorbed by Disney and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Maybe that’s why it lacks passion. It certainly doesn’t help that it comes on the heels of Avengers: Endgame. Truly, the movie isn’t a disaster. But even that would be more interesting than what we got.
Hey! I’m Karl. You can find me on Twitter here. I’m also a Tomatometer-approved critic.
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