"foX-Men" Re-Watch: X-Men: Dark Phoenix

 "X-Men: Dark Phoenix" (2019)

We have reached the final "X-Men" movie in Fox's series and it ends not with a bang but with a whimper. "X-Men: Dark Phoenix" was supposed to be a better re-telling of the famous X-story than what we got in "X-Men: The Last Stand." Spoiler alert, we didn't get it. The movie was plagued with delays and reshoots. It was not well received by audiences when it was released and is one of, if not the biggest box office bombs of all-time.

Principal photography on "X-Men: Dark Phoenix" began in June 2017 and ended in October 2017. The entire third act was re-shot in late 2018. The film stars Sophie Turner as Jean Grey/Phoenix/Dark Phoenix, James McAvoy as Charles Xavier, Michael Fassbender as Erik Lensherr/Magneto, Jennifer Lawrence as Raven Darkholme/Mystique, Nicholas Hoult as Hank McCoy/The Beast, Tye Sheridan as Scott Summers/Cyclops, Alexandra Shipp as Ororo Munroe/Storm, Evan Peters as Peter Maximoff/Quicksilver, Kodi Smit-Mcphee as Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler and Jessica Chastain as Vuk. The film was written and directed by Simon Kinberg. "X-Men: Dark Phoenix" premiered on June 7, 2019. 

Almost die? Party time.

I'm going to cut to the chase. This movie is hot garbage. It's maybe worse than "X-Men: The Last Stand." I had high hopes for this movie. Honestly, I don't hate the "First Class" series and I really thought if they decided to try to do the Dark Phoenix saga again, they would take the time and do it right. I defended it. I told my friends that it was going to be good, they wouldn't fuck it up a second time. Even when I found out they were re-shooting the entire ending, I still defended it. They duped me. I admit it. I had my rose colored glasses on and I was heartily let down. I am not going to spend a lot of words on this garbage film. I thought the best thing to do was countdown the top 5 worst/cringiest things in "X-Men: Dark Phoenix.

I wanted to try to find one good thing about this movie to start off with before we dive into all the bad. I racked my brain and here it is. The best thing about this movie is the sequence in space. It's actually semi close to how Jean becomes the Phoenix in the comics. It's a cool sequence and not something that we've really seen in the movies so far. And it's nice that Jean actually becomes the Phoenix because she is possessed by a cosmic entity. They don't try to make it some alternate personality or something like they did in "The Last Stand." So, yeah, that's it. The only semi decent part in this film. I'm hesitant to even call it good. OK. Let's jump into the bad.

There's something on your face.

5. The Storm disrespect

Seriously, this has been a common complaint throughout the Fox "X-Men" series. Ororo Munroe is one of the best, most popular X-Men in the comics. She's regal. She was worshipped as a goddess. She's a better leader of the team than Cyclops. And yet, the movies refuse to give her the respect that she deserves. Her powers are amazing. She can control the weather. They are basically limitless. But the movies only really have her shoot lightning, which can be a cool visual, but it's honestly, the most we usually see her doing and it's all we see her doing in "X-Men: Dark Phoenix." It's super annoying and really feels like they are nerfing her for some reason. And to add insult to injury, this movie turns her into a glorified ice maker. It's a joke.

Can you believe this?

4. Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique

When Jennifer Lawrence made her debut as Mystique in "X-Men: First Class," she was a young star on the rise. It wasn't easy stepping into the shoes of original Mystique, Rebecca Romijn, but Lawrence did a really great job of taking the role and making it her own. Her shining moment in the role was in "Days of Future Past." She was great and showed why she was an Oscar winner. It was with "X-Men Apocalypse" you could kind of tell she was done with this. It could be because she was part of two blockbuster franchises and just needed a break. Honestly, I didn't expect her to be in another "X-Men" movie, but apparently she's pretty good friends and with Simon Kinberg and decided to make this movie as a favor to him. She shouldn't have. She is clearly phoning it in and she brings down almost every scene she's in. It's like she's just reading her lines. Not only that, but she hated the body painting process, which is fine. In "X-Men: Apocalypse," She was wearing a body suit and just painting her face, hands and feet. Well, in this movie, she couldn't even be bothered to do that. They just CGI'ed her face and it looks horrible. The worst superhero CGI since they CGI'ed over Henry Cavill's beard in "Justice League."

3. Lackluster Action Sequences

Even in the worst action/superhero movies, you can at least count on some dope action sequences to make you forget, at least for a moment, that you're watching something that's really terrible. Well, "X-Men: Dark Phoenix" really shits the bed here too. None of the films action sequences is original or pulse pounding or exciting, even. They are all pretty run-of-the-mill and boring. There is nothing here we haven't seen a million times before in the myriad of other superhero films out there. Heck, we've even seen similar and better in other "X-Men" films. Even the big action set piece on the train is just OK. It had a ton of potential but just like this entire movie, it fails to live up to it. Also, can we talk about Nightcrawler just straight up murdering folks, which is so out of character for him. I guess it doesn't matter because they're aliens. It just shows that the Kinberg really has no real handle on who these characters actually are. See also, Cyclops saying "fuck."

2. The Worst Villains Ever in a Superhero Movie?

 I get it. That's a big statement and it could very well by super hyperbolic. I haven't seen every superhero movie and I'm sure there are worse villains than the D'Bari, but let's face it. The D'Bari are pretty fucking lame. For reference, the D'Bari were a race of aliens that Dark Phoenix wiped out when she had Jean's form. She dived into the heart of their sun causing it go supernova and basically causing a genocide. You may remember them because they look like walking stalks of celery. This is the deepest, weirdest cut to pull from. It feel like they just did this because they wanted to say "See, we read comics. Here's this random Easter egg only a handful of people will actually get." Poor Jessica Chastain. One of the best actors of her generation saddled with this do nothing role. I really hope she gets the chance to be in an MCU movie or something someday. She'd be awesome and she deserves it after being in this movie.

These uniforms...

1. The Assassination of Jean Grey

Everyone who knows me knows that Jean Grey is my favorite comic book character and part of that is because of her turn as Phoenix. I am not sure why they think they can do the Phoenix and Dark Phoenix saga in one movie. I'm sure I brought this up when I did my re-watch of "X-Men: The Last Stand" last year, but there's just too much. For her turn to Dark Phoenix to be as impactful as it needs to be, then there has to be a substantial bit of time with Jean as the Phoenix. But there's not here. From the moment that Jean is onscreen, she's devoid of any agency at all. She's a bratty kid who is blamed for murdering her mother because of her uncontrolled mutant powers. It makes no sense. Has Jean done stuff like this before? Why is her dad such a fucking asshole? Then, Xavier lies to her and fucks with her mind. Lazy. When Jean becomes Phoenix, she loses control when it's convenient for Kinberg's script. She needs to lose control to justify murdering Raven. But then later on, when she's meeting with Erik, she is able to take out those soldiers no problem and she seems to be in complete control when she does it. Make up your mind. Then, she's at the will of Vuk. God that is a stupid name. And that leads to the cringiest scene of the entire movie when she forces Xavier to "walk." It's all just so bad.

There's other stuff I could mention. The lame-ass mutants they saddle Magneto with. I mean, seriously, a dude using his braids to fight? The awful Dazzler cameo. The wasting of Evan Peters. But honestly, I think we've spent enough "ink" on this. Let's all just be thankful the Fox X-Men movies are done and hopefully soon we will have an actual MCU X-Men film.

Next up, the Fox mutant movies come to a close with the much delayed "The New Mutants."

What do you all think? Am I being too harsh? Does anyone actually like this movie? Let me know in the comments.