Dark Phoenix is written and directed by Simon Kinberg (in his directorial debut), and the twelfth film in the X-Men Fox Saga. It’s now 1992, and on their first space rescue mission, Jean Grey absorbs a solar flare that causes her powers to skyrocket, becoming known as “the Phoenix”. However, as she’s becoming unstable with this power and losing her trust in the X-Men, all while now becoming a target by the world and especially the alien race, the D’Bari, led by Vuk.
The Dark Phoenix Saga is regarded by many fans as debatably the best and one of the most important storylines in the X-Men comics, but so far the only adaptation that’s been the most faithful has been from X-Men: The Animated Series. I’m not just saying this because they able to take their time with telling this story arc in their series and flesh out the character development, but every other attempt to adapt this storyline (both movies AND tv) ended up being swept under its feet. For example, every later X-Men cartoon that was going to do it, ended up getting cancelled after the show ends on a cliffhanger. This also isn’t the first time that Fox has attempted to adapt The Dark Phoenix Saga as it became a major plotline in X-Men: The Last Stand; however, after multiple crew members left (including director Bryan Singer and the writing staff), Fox brought on Brett Ratner, Zak Penn, and Simon Kinberg, to adapt the storyline built for Jean and muddle it into this plot about a cure for mutants and killing off characters out of nowhere; along with behind-the-scenes controversy that occurred with Brett Ratner’s behavior on set, it not only damaged the reputation of the films, but the X-Men franchise in general. I was ten when I saw that film in theatres, and while I liked it at the time, I could still at least tell something was off about it.
After Bryan Singer came back with X-Men: Days of Future Past, fixing a lot of problems people had, it was short lived after X-Men: Apocalypse, due to the studio wanting to do redo Dark Phoenix instead of doing Mister Sinister (who had been built up since X-Men: First Class and was going to be introduced in The New Mutants played by Jon Hamm. Instead, writer Simon Kinberg was given the task as director, at the request of main cast members. Yeah, because the guy who co-wrote Fant4stic and Mr. & Mrs. Smith is CLEARLY the right person to give a second chance to on such a massive story arc.
Through months of reshoots, including a rewrite of the whole third act, and several last minute delays, the film has finally made its release to the public...and it was one of the most depressing film experiences I’ve ever had. This is such a soulless movie, and by that, I mean there isn’t a drop of enthusiasm or interest to be had with what’s going on. Hell, even the credits don’t even make an attempt to hype you up or anticipate some dread into you.
Once again, the biggest problem is that this film doesn’t properly represent the themes of the original story. The struggle of Jean tapping into this hidden power and keeping it under control is slightly represented, but then she’ll suddenly act like she’s mastered this new found power she has, completely out of nowhere. It also retcons the whole climax of X-Men: Apocalypse, when she ALREADY has the Phoenix Force power, but suddenly it’s a completely separate entity that Jean absorbs apparently. I also found out this film’s original third act was redone, because it was too similar to Captain Marvel’s, and while the train fight sequence does look cool, you can tell this belonged to a completely different movie; it was like a sudden jump in quality from average filmmaking to above average.
Most of the dialogue is downright awful, and feels like it was written to kind of trigger people, like Mystique yelling at Charles that it should be “X-Women” after Jean did all the saving; or how most of these characters talking about what this all means for mutant kind, and it just comes off as laughable. Even with the level of talent in the cast, they don’t look the least bit happy to be there. James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult; after having to play these characters and have them relearn and say the morals they’ve been preaching since 2011 when they did First Class, I don’t blame them for not wanting to be there anymore, but it doesn’t make me interested to watch them either. Even later members from like Tye Sheridan, Evan Peters, and Alexandra Shipp didn’t seem that hopeful about it. Jessica Chastain as the villain, Vuk, you could have cut her out of the movie and it wouldn’t have made a difference. Apparently, Chastain’s character was supposed to be like Ben Mendlesohn’s Skrull character, but due to the reshoots or because Fox didn’t do their research, she now comes off like Sofia Boutella’s character in The Mummy.
This brings me to Sophie Turner in the titular role, and the reason I bring her up last is because she leaves the least impactful impression on me. The script has her go through the same repetitive mood swings: Jean goes for help, she’s turned away, someone shows up looking for her, she loses her cool, runs away crying. After the third time, it becomes apparent they didn’t know how to actually write this character or this arc at all, even if this WAS two films. With this being the second time Kinberg has attempted to adapt this story, it’s even more frustrating because he clearly doesn’t know how to adapt this storyline properly. Originally, they were supposed to be building up to Mister Sinister, who was actually going to be revealed in The New Mutants played by Jon Hamm; but due to them delaying it to plan a series, as well as Simon Kinberg taking over the next main X-Men and try to build another multi-part story that has to be sanded down to one film due to changes in management, Fox just ended up shooting themselves in the foot for like the fourth or fifth time.
For a series that managed to stay relevant for twenty years, despite its flubs, the X-Men Film Saga has had both the best and worst examples of comic book movies, and this one falls under the latter. Much like Justice League and Spiderman 3, this was a finale that had too much crammed in and bit off more than it could chew; whether this came before or after Avengers Endgame, this film was already the final nail in the coffin for not just the X-Men Film Saga, but 20th Century Fox as a company all together. To end this off, allow me to quote T.S. Eliot: “The world ends/Not with a bang, but a whimper.” And that “whimper” is Dark Phoenix.
Rating: F
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