'Dark Phoenix' Review Thread

Rotten Tomatoes: 15% (41 critics) with 4.43 in averageCritics Consensus: Dark Phoenix ends an era of the X-Men franchise by taking a second stab at adapting a classic comics arc -- with deeply disappointing results.Metacritic: 43/100 (26 critics)As with other movies, the scores are set to change as time passes. Meanwhile, I'll post some short reviews on the movie."X-Men" mutant doesn't start the fire-Michael Phillips, Chicago TribuneThe first couple of “X-Men” movies in the 2000s, and more recently “X-Men: First Class” and “Logan,” set the standard for what this long-running franchise could and should do. Compared to that ilk, “Dark Phoenix” simply flames out.-Brian Truitt, USA Today“Dark Phoenix,” on the other hand, is designed to avoid pushing any buttons. Or doing much of anything else, for that matter. It just sort of happens, and not even the movie itself seems to know why. “Dark Phoenix” promises that the X-Men will rise from the ashes — that Jean Grey will be reborn from her own pain — but there’s no use holding your breath for a miracle; this entire franchise feels like it’s already been interred.-David Ehrlich, IndieWire: DCompared to the conclusions of other major franchises — the most recent being Avengers: Endgame — this one seems distinctly minor-league. The men who have anchored most of the X-Men outings are just spinning their wheels here, and while Jean's central dilemma is certainly dramatic enough, and is most closely entwined with the actions of two other women, what should have registered as genuinely powerful instead plays out in a pretty low-key way. In no way does this feel like a fulsome, satisfying destination to a journey that started two decades ago and logged about 30 hours in the telling.-Todd McCarthy, The Hollywood ReporterThere’s a cheesiness that Kinberg brings to his imagery that recalls the original X-Men movies, with all of their faults and strengths. That sentimentality ultimately doesn’t pay off because of the lackluster performances of the cast and the shoddy scaffolding of the first two acts. Still, Dark Phoenix is not as much trainwreck as it is a slow-moving car collision that ends up screeching to a halt right before it scratches the bumper in front of it. No bang, no explosion, just a limp sense of finality. In a sense, Dark Phoenix is the perfect median of the massively uneven X-Men franchise: a middle-of-the-road superhero film that will be remembered for its lost potential.-Hoai-Tran Bui, /FILM: 6/10I’ll always be an X-Men fan since the 90s cartoon was my gateway to geekery, but Dark Phoenix shows that this franchise has made too many miscalculations to continue as it is. Even setting aside the messy continuity, why did these movies need to jump forward a decade with every installment? Why adapt “The Dark Phoenix Saga” if the character relationships haven’t been properly established? What makes an X-Men movie unique when the world now has The Avengers? These questions were never really answered, and so the current X-Men series closes not with triumph but with a shrug (I’m inclined to believe that the upcoming New Mutants, which doesn’t share any cast members with the X-Men saga proper, will get buried on Hulu or Disney+). When Marvel Studios inevitably reboots X-Men, a movie like Dark Phoenix will be a forgotten relic. The characters and their world deserve better, but we’ll have to wait until their next evolution.-Matt Goldberg, Collider: DDark Phoenix is ultimately yet another fumbled take on the classic saga from the Marvel Comics, albeit one without the side plots of The Last Stand. Add to it a jarringly uneven latter half and some underdeveloped cosmic villains, and Dark Phoenix is fortunate to have not fully ended the X-Men’s current big screen run on a completely down note. While the MCU may prove better suited to give so many of these beloved mutant characters the rich dimension and care they deserve, the property itself deservedly needs a good long rest before the X-Men return to the screen.-Jim Vejvoda, IGN: 6.3 "okay"The point of a phoenix, dark or otherwise, is that it rises from the flames. But these are the flames in which this franchise has finally gone down.-Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian: 2/5Given an eight year head start on rival superhero franchise, the Avengers, but with ten fewer films under its belt, the X-Men series suffers from creative decisions which have resulted in a confused and contradictory patchwork of cast changes, multiple timelines and repetitive narratives. This twelfth X-Men yarn is a sombre and plodding retread of the series' 2006 third instalment, X-Men: The Last Stand, and feels at all times like a rehashed greatest hits package of uninspired action scenes.-Chris Hunneysett, Mirror: 2/5The 'X-Men' franchise wraps up — or does it? — with a functionally plotted sequel that attains a note of ominous majesty, thanks to Sophie Turner's presence as an X-Woman consumed by the awesomeness of her power.-Owen Gleiberman, VarietySophie Turner shines but messy plot flames out.-Johnny Oleksinski, New York Post: 2.5/4It would be wonderful to report that “Dark Phoenix” was an impressive send-off to this long-running franchise (especially since the next film, “New Mutants,” isn’t coming out anytime soon). In a strange way, it might have been preferable if this was the most embarrassing film in the series, since at least then there’d be a reason to remember it. Instead it’s just a disappointingly average superhero flick, with a familiar story, disinterested actors, some cool action sequences, and a whole lot of missed opportunities.-William Bibbiani, The WrapIts atrocious, expository dialogue, cumbersome plot, whiplashing character motivations, unintentionally funny moments, and often corny costumes, ensures, “Dark Phoenix” will be remembered in the annals of mediocre movies (and for somehow utterly wasting Jessica Chastain, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, and James McAvoy in the same film). But there is a kernel of what it could have been, and in case you’re wondering it’s not quite the nadir of the series. Toying with ideas of identity and destiny that it telegraphs in spoon-feeding voiceover, “Dark Phoenix” wants to be about who we are and those who aren’t afforded that choice— positing that Jean Grey might be destined for greatness or fated to be a monster, but personal agency of who she truly is, has never been in her control. It’s admirable material on paper, but it’s also just layers of stuff that’s meaningless and empty. And so imagine a story about an arrogant movie that believes its psychologically complex, but ultimately can’t see itself for the shallow superhero movie it truly is.-Rodrigo Perez, The Playlist: C-It’s possible, of course, that there was a better Dark Phoenix once; the finished film, finally opening after delays probably associated with the Fox merger, bears the clear mark of post-production rejiggering. Certainly, this series, uneven and repetitive though it could be, deserved a stronger sendoff before the inevitable MCU reboot. But maybe it got that in Logan, whose final image is more powerful—and conclusive—than anything this skimpy, quasi-farewell can muster. Now there was a different kind of X-Men movie.-A.A. Dowd, A.V. Club: CIt’s very hard to tell this story in a satisfying way in this little amount of time. Multiple characters undergo life-altering changes of perspective — flipping from good to evil, sympathetic to monstrous — in a matter of seconds. The whole movie hinges on Jean Grey, a character we hardly know (the Sophie Turner version was introduced in a minor role in X-Men: Apocalypse) and her relationships to a team of heroes we’ve hardly seen. The film is like an adaptation of the original Dark Phoenix comics, and also of the Anchorman “Well, that escalated quickly” meme. Everything happens too fast, until the whole structure goes down in flames.-Matt Singer, ScreenCrush: 4/10Superheroes do progressive politics these days as a matter of course, and here it just feels like shtick – a box to be dutifully checked, rather than a theme to be meaningfully explored.-Robbie Collin, The Telegraph: 1/5What a bummer for this franchise to end on Apocalypse and, now, Dark Phoenix. Yes, there have been plenty of clunkers along the way, but these X-Men movies have also provided us with some legitimate classics. And now, somewhere down the line, Marvel will reboot the X-Men to fit into the MCU. (If nothing else, at least there will be some continuity, something that always plagued this franchise. Don’t forget, somehow Michael Fassbender will look like Ian McKellen just eight years after the events of Dark Phoenix.) But I will miss this franchise. When they got it right, these movies could be incredible. I do wonder, 20 years from now, how we’ll look back on these movies. My guess is entries like Dark Phoenix and X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Last Stand will be forgotten, while films like X2 and First Class and Logan will all be remembered fondly. So, yes, it’s a shame we didn’t get one last great X-Men film, but in the end, it won’t matter. There are still a whole heck of a lot of them that will stand the test of time.-Mike Ryan, UproxxSuch discrepancies epitomize a film that regularly has its characters say and do what is required for each scene regardless of how badly it contradicts a previous moment. At its heart, Claremont’s original story is about the lengths people are willing to go to save Jean from herself. And without the core sense of these characters’ camaraderie and devotion to her, Dark Phoenix is a soulless retelling of one of the great arcs in comic book lore, and an all-too-fitting whimper of a conclusion to a franchise that never remotely fulfilled its potential.-Jake Cole, Slant: 1.5/4In “Dark Phoenix” you can sense Kinberg trying to summon that same finesse, to disappointing ends. He does pull off one diverting action sequence, set aboard a fast-moving train and goosed by an enjoyably bombastic Hans Zimmer score. Unfortunately, he also tries to explain the mysteries of the Phoenix with a dead-on-arrival subplot involving a race of alien body snatchers whose leader is played by an uncharacteristically listless Jessica Chastain. Her heavy-lidded gaze, presumably meant to suggest otherworldly detachment, merely holds up a mirror to the audience’s boredom.-Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times‘Dark Phoenix” isn’t kidding about the “dark” part. The latest, and probably final, chapter in the X-Men superhero saga is a somber, even funereal affair — not in a stylish, Christopher Nolan-esque way, or even a la “Logan,” the deliciously cynical comic-book-noir contribution to the mutant canon from 2017. Rather, if a movie can be said to suffer from low-grade depression, this one certainly seems to be, shuffling in its socks and bathrobe through a not-quite-two-hour running time with an attitude that is closer to grudging obligation than enthusiastic commitment.-Michael O'Sullivan, The Washington Post: 2/4WRITER/DIRECTORSimon KinbergMUSIC COMPOSERHans ZimmerCINEMATOGRAPHERMauro FioreEDITORLee SmithRelease date:June 7, 2019Budget:$200,000,000 (reportedly)STARRINGJames McAvoy as Charles Xavier / Professor XMichael Fassbender as Erik Lehnsherr / MagnetoJennifer Lawrence as Raven Darkhölme / MystiqueNicholas Hoult as Hank McCoy / BeastSophie Turner as Jean Grey / Dark PhoenixTye Sheridan as Scott Summers / CyclopsKodi Smit-McPhee as Kurt Wagner / NightcrawlerAlexandra Shipp as Ororo Munroe / StormEvan Peters as Peter Maximoff / QuicksilverJessica Chastain as Vuk via /r/movies http://bit.ly/2XpTg13