The X-men films have been mixed at best in terms of quality, but I’ve been entertained watching them, I hoped it would end on a high and whilst I’ll get to New Mutants at a later date, let’s look at the final main-line X-men film, Dark Phoenix.
So, Brett Ratner and Brian Singer have both been implicated as perpetrators of sexual assault. Bet that makes looking back on the X-men fun. Personally, I would’ve brought back Matthew Vaughn but for whatever reason, they decided to elevate Simon Kinberg to director. He has plenty of experience with the X-men, having been involved with writing Days of Future Past and Apocalypse, as well as The Last Stand and Fant4stic, those triumphs of cinema.
Still, Kinberg acknowledges that studio interference with
The Last Stand led to the story not being a good retelling of the Phoenix saga,
and wanted to give it a try with more creative freedom. And then the studio got
involved again, stopping his initial plan for a 2-part movie after the
relatively underwhelming performance of Apocalypse.
The entire ending was reshot as the studio felt it was too
similar to Captain Marvel. Speaking of which the villains had to be changed
because of Captain Marvel too, creative freedom ladies and gentlemen.
So does this movie deliver… no, it doesn’t… let’s dig in and
see why not.
So, can whoever it is that came up with the stupid idea of the X-men reboot films skipping decades kindly boot yourself out the door. Thank you.
At this point the X-men are seen as heroes and a public
service. Despite the fact that Mystique pointed a gun at a president 2 films
ago, and she’s leading the X-men now. Anyway, there’s a rocket ship in distress
having come across solar flares and the X-men, now Beast, Nightcrawler,
Cyclops, Mystique, Storm, Jean Grey and Quicksilver head off in their x-ship to
save him. See, having an X-ship in the 90’s that can go into space is the exact
reason why it shouldn’t be set in the 90’s. The vaguer you are about the time;
the easier things are to just accept.
Jean is caught by the not really solar flare but somehow
survives. By the way, we get a flashback to Jean Grey causing a car accident
that feels wildly similar to the one in Shazam! Like they came out too close
together to be obviously a copy, but… it is weird, right? So yeah, attempts to
make Jean endearing before everything goes to hell… that doesn’t actually
happen. Even the pre-reboot X-men did a better job with this.
I would judge Sophie Turner’s performance but honestly, it’s
pretty poor all round, Xavier and Magneto get a pass but everyone else is
putting the lowest effort possible. No-one more so than Jennifer Lawrence, and
you can tell she’s past caring just by looking at her new lower-effort makeup.
Kinberg’s direction is not great at all, you can tell he hasn’t done this
before, there’s delivery that should’ve easily warranted a second take and some
of the shots are just bad. My mind recalls a shot of the side of Jean’s face
with everything else in soft focus, looking all blurred. It’s the side of the
face it’s not exactly emotional.
Jean’s powers begin to enhance and, stop me if you’d heard
this before, break down the mental barriers Charles Xavier put in place to
protect her. In this scenario, those barriers are for her emotional turmoil and
trauma and I can’t even begin to tell you how bad an idea that is… I usually
empathise with Xavier trying to block her powers from unleashing but doing like
this is like arming a ticking time bomb. One of the bigger arcs in this film is
Charles’ hubris, which if anything feels more like an excuse to have him step
back from the franchise for a bit. [pointlessly seeing where we’ve ended up
anyway] it’s not badly told, it’s just rushed, like pretty much everything
else.
Anyway, after an incident at the family home that’s eerily
similar to The Last Stand, Jean, in a blind rage, cripples Quicksilver before
he can do anything interesting and kills Mystique to put her out of our, and Jenifer Lawrence's misery.
Here it’s shown like she’s acting in a blind rage with no control, in later
scenes she acts almost entirely in control and as if possessed. Make up your
damn mind!
Genosha shows up in this movie, it looks sh*t. Anyway, Beast
breaks off from the team and asks Magneto to help kill her. Magneto knows that
they are at best evenly matched physically so does he have a cunning plan to
stop her in her tracks? Nope, I mean he wears the helmet to block her telepathy
but she’s telekinetic and crushes it around his head.
“You’re always sorry Charles, and there’s always a speech,
but no-one cares anymore”
“I’ve changed my mind, we need to protect Jean”
OK, I’m paraphrasing but still, everyone flip-flops with
motivation, it’s really not good.
Who are they protecting Jean from, you might ask, as if you cared? It's the D’Bari who manage to be even
more forgettable than Apocalypse from the last film. They were based around the
Hellfire Club and initially intended to be Skrulls. That changes pretty much
nothing, they still suck. They want the Phoenix to restore their race and god
knows how that works since the Phoenix blew up their planet.
So, the reshot finale takes place on a train and the stakes feel quite low, it’s really underwhelming. And then Jean wakes up, defeats the
D’Bari easily and decides to take off into the sky, duh end.
This film just sucks, it’s not interesting enough to be
funny or so bad it’s good, at its best it’s boring. The effects are mostly
pretty competent which should be a given for a $200m production but I can’t get
past it, I just don’t care about any of the characters. None of them have any
real personality, there’s no banter or interaction between them in this film
beyond being angry or sad. There’s this outdoor campfire scene that could’ve
been used to do something but it just fizzles out, just like my interest in
this movie.
Kinberg delivers a script that makes the Phoenix force feel
like a low-stakes conflict and direction that feels amateurish at best. The
actors all feel generally disinterested in the material not that it provides
them much to chew on. This is a really poor way for the X-men to bow out.
Rating 30/100
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