Dark Phoenix (2019) review

In the early 2000s, the superhero film genre experienced a major resurgence thanks to three films that were all based on Marvel properties, which were also notably the first majorly successful live-action films that the company had ever produced after most of their previous efforts were underwhelming, to say the least. In fact, some of them were so disastrous that they didn’t even get a proper theatrical release (i.e. the infamous 1994 adaptation of The Fantastic Four). But then there was the trio of 1998’s Blade, Sam Raimi’s original Spider-Man in 2002, and the film that paved the way for today’s topic, X-Men, released in 2000 and directed by Bryan Singer. Despite both Singer and several of the film’s cast members admitting that they weren’t too familiar with the source material going in, the original X-Men was a solid critical and commercial success and helped the superhero genre evolve into the powerhouse that it still is today. Thus, the cast and crew returned for a sequel in 2003, X2: X-Men United, which was an even bigger hit and touted by many as a superior sequel. Not only that, but it ended on a note that teased a follow-up that would adapt one of the most famous X-Men storylines from the comics, The Dark Phoenix Saga, where X-Men member Jean Grey is corrupted by the full extent of her telepathic powers. However, as most of you know, this first adaptation turned out to be a bit of a disaster, mainly due to Singer backing out of the project to direct Superman Returns. Brett Ratner was hired in his place and the film that followed, 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand, received a far more polarizing reaction from critics while being outright despised by fans for its handling of the Dark Phoenix storyline. This and the equally disastrous 2009 spin-off X-Men Origins: Wolverine effectively put the X-Men film franchise in a very rough spot for quite a few years.  

It wasn’t until 2011 when the series officially saw a comeback thanks to X-Men: First Class, a prequel/soft reboot directed by Matthew Vaughn that featured a cast of newcomers playing younger versions of the series’ established characters. And despite some initial skepticism from audiences, the film was a surprise critical and financial hit upon its release. This then paved the way for 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past, which saw Bryan Singer return to the franchise for the first time since X2 and combined the ensembles of both the original trilogy and First Class in a loose adaptation of the popular Days of Future Past storyline from the comics. The film also notably established a major bit of retconning by setting up an alternate continuity that ignored the events of The Last Stand. Because of this, writer/producer Simon Kinberg (who also wrote The Last Stand) hoped that this would pave the way for a more faithful Dark Phoenix adaptation in the future. And despite the generally mixed reaction towards the next installment of the franchise, 2016’s X-Men: Apocalypse, plans were officially set into motion for a new adaptation of the Dark Phoenix storyline. Not only that, but the film would also end up serving as Kinberg’s directorial debut after it was made clear that Apocalypse would be Singer’s last entry in the series. Thus, here we are now with the latest X-Men film, simply titled Dark Phoenix, and by all accounts, this will be the final installment of the main series (not counting the long-delayed New Mutants film that’s currently set for a 2020 release) following Disney’s purchase of 20^th Century Fox earlier this year. And yet, despite this, reports of some extensive production issues, and an overall chilly reception, Dark Phoenix is ultimately another solid entry in the franchise even though I do agree that it still isn’t the proper Dark Phoenix Saga adaptation that it could’ve been.

It is 1992 and the relationship between humans and mutants has started to prosper thanks to the continued heroic efforts of telepath Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and the X-Men. However, during a mission where the group rescues the crew of the space shuttle Endeavour, team member/telepath Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) endures the full force of a mysterious solar flare. Against all odds, Jean survives this event but her telepathic abilities end up getting amplified in the process, and to make matters worse, it also allows her to break a mental block that Charles had placed on her when she was younger to hide her memories of a car crash that she accidentally caused that resulted in the death of her mother. Thus, having realized that some of her most trusted allies have been keeping secrets from her, the more volatile aspects of Jean’s powers begin to take effect. This is then complicated further by the arrival of an alien race known as the D’Bari, led by the mysterious Vuk (Jessica Chastain), who seeks to harness Jean’s ‘Phoenix’ abilities for her own sinister purposes, resulting in the X-Men taking on their most perilous mission yet as they find themselves having to face one of their own. And if that wasn’t enough, Charles’ past efforts to ‘protect’ Jean end up causing a major divide amongst several members of the group, with the situation only being agitated further once the always unpredictable Erik Lehnsherr AKA Magneto (Michael Fassbender) gets involved.

As noted in the intro, one of the biggest issues that fans had with The Last Stand was its handling of the Dark Phoenix storyline, which was mainly due to it ultimately being a combination of two radically different storylines from the comics. The other storyline that was adapted for the film was Gifted, a six-part miniseries that was written by none other than Joss Whedon that focused on the introduction of a ‘mutant cure’, which meant that neither storyline got the proper attention that it should’ve since the film had to juggle them both at the same time. By comparison, this new film is technically a more faithful adaptation of the Dark Phoenix arc despite only having one major sequence that takes place in space and not including some of the storyline’s important characters. Namely, it doesn’t feature the Hellfire Club (although they did appear in First Class and were technically wiped out by the time Days of Future Past rolled around) and changes the prominently featured alien race from the Shi’ar to the D’Bari. However, a different issue then comes into play as the film doesn’t quite give this storyline the emotional poignancy that it could’ve had. It goes without saying that the transformation of Jean Grey from hero to villain proves to be devastating for the X-Men, especially her love interest Scott Summers AKA Cyclops (Tye Sheridan). But in the film, it’s treated like your standard hero/villain conflict, and thus, is quite lacking in terms of depth. At the very least, this film’s technical aspects fare a lot better. Despite this only being his first directorial effort, Simon Kinberg does a nice job with the action sequences and the whole film is backed by a suitably intense Hans Zimmer score.  

A lot has been said about how most of the main leads in this film who have been with the franchise for quite some time now are clearly not as enthusiastic about it as they were back then (that and a lot of jokes about how they still look as old as they did in First Class despite that being three films/in-universe decades ago). And yet, for what it’s worth, the returning leads of the franchise are still just as good as they’ve always been in these films, primarily because they continue to be the ones who get the most character development even though it does become a detriment to others. James McAvoy, for example, continues to shine as a more flawed Xavier compared to Patrick Stewart’s version of the character from the original trilogy, especially in this instance given that this whole plot is the result of his best intentions coming back to haunt him. Then there’s Michael Fassbender, who is still quite arguably the biggest standout of the First Class era ensemble as the emotionally charged Magneto. Jennifer Lawrence, meanwhile, continues to be solid as Mystique, who maintains the direction of her arc in Apocalypse by further embracing her leadership capabilities and being more protective of the younger members of the team. However, as some of this film’s trailers have implicated, her role in the plot is much smaller this time around. And finally, there’s Nicholas Hoult as Beast, who arguably gets the most prominent story arc that he’s ever had in this series due to his growing frustrations with Charles over his handling of Jean’s predicament and the devastating results that they yield.

Unfortunately, the newer members of the cast who had promising debuts in Apocalypse don’t get as much to work with this time around even though the First Class era films have done a lot better than the original trilogy when it comes to showing the X-Men working as a team. As alluded to earlier, Tye Sheridan doesn’t get any opportunities to truly delve into the emotional turmoil that Scott is going through over Jean’s actions even though he had one of the best emotional moments in Apocalypse when he learned about his brother Alex’s death. Alexandra Shipp also gets heavily underutilized as Storm, a fact that Shipp herself has openly acknowledged in recent interviews. Heck, we don’t even get a lot of fan-favorite Quicksilver (Evan Peters) this time around, which means that there’s sadly no new standout running sequence set to music like in the previous two films. At the very least, Sophie Turner does manage to do a solid job handling Jean’s psychological dilemma even if this film’s writing doesn’t exactly match her dedication to the role. But then we come to this film’s main antagonists, the D’Bari, who are, unfortunately, some of the weakest villains in the franchise’s history. Jessica Chastain does her best with what she’s given as their leader Vuk, but without much explanation of their backstory or their plans, they’re just a bunch of nameless thugs for the X-Men to fight. I will say, however, that the finale, where the X-Men fight the D’Bari on a train, is a solidly done action sequence, which is saying something considering that this was the biggest aspect of the film’s extensive reshoots due to the original ending supposedly being too similar to the likes of Captain Marvel and Captain America: Civil War.

At the time of this review’s publication, Dark Phoenix currently stands as the worst-received installment of the X-Men film franchise; yes, even more so than The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. And with a lackluster turn at the box-office (to the point where it will apparently be out of most theaters very soon), it’s clear that most audiences are just waiting for the series’ inevitable reboot into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But is it really that bad? Well, not really. It’s competently made from a technical standpoint and everyone in it does a good job with the material that they’re given. However, while it’s far from being the disaster that many are saying it is, it’s still a sign that the X-Men franchise is running on fumes at this point. While it may technically be a more faithful adaptation of the Dark Phoenix Saga when compared to X-Men: The Last Stand, it never truly has the chance to delve into the psychological and emotional aspects of its storyline. In other words, as it is presented in this film, the conflict of Jean Grey going rogue has about as much urgency to it as Thor: The Dark World. With all this in mind, if this is truly meant to be the last installment of the X-Men film franchise as we’ve known it since the start of the new millennium, then I will openly admit that it’s probably for the best. And while I may be in the minority when it comes to liking this franchise, I do look forward to seeing how Kevin Feige and his team will incorporate these iconic characters into the MCU.

Rating: 4/5

X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) review

While the superhero genre has come a long way since then, the original X-Men, released on July 14, 2000, was very much the first ‘big-time’ superhero flick of the 21^st century. And while he (nor most of the film’s cast, for that matter) may not have been that familiar with the franchise when he first started working on it, Bryan Singer ultimately ended up becoming one of the pioneering directors when it came to modern-era superhero films, later paving the way for other directors like Joss Whedon and the Russo brothers to leave their own mark on the genre. Singer then followed his first X-Men film up with an even more successful sequel in the form of 2003’s X2: X-Men United. And of course as we all know, he then left the franchise to work on other projects (most notably another superhero project in 2006’s Superman Returns), which then led to the films starting to drop in quality with a highly disappointing ‘threequel’ in 2006 and an even more mediocre spin-off in 2009. Thankfully the series started to get back on track in 2011 with director Matthew Vaughn’s 1960’s-set prequel, X-Men: First Class. But while he may not have directed the film, part of the film’s success, if you ask me, came from the long-awaited return of Bryan Singer to the franchise, as he served as the film’s producer/co-writer. Three years later, Singer would finally return to the franchise full-time as he helmed X-Men: Days of Future Past, inspired by the iconic comic storyline of the same name. And to put it simply, the film proved to be not only the best X-Men film to date but also one of the best superhero films period. It also officially cemented the franchise’s overall road to redemption by pulling a much-appreciated continuity retcon that erased the events of the series’ weakest installments from its official canon.  

So now we come to what is, at the moment, seemingly set to be the final film of the franchise’s First Class era: X-Men: Apocalypse. The new film sees the X-Men take on their greatest enemy yet in the form of the ‘original’ mutant En Sabah Nur AKA Apocalypse. With Bryan Singer back to direct, most of the First Class era cast returning to reprise their roles, and some very promising new additions to the cast, who wouldn’t be excited for the latest film in this great series? Well, if you recall my previous post on this film… apparently most of the internet. Yes, while the franchise seemed to be in good standing following not only Days of Future Past but also this year’s highly successful spin-off Deadpool, X-Men: Apocalypse, for various reasons, just didn’t get much positive attention online in the months leading up to its release, at least when compared to the other superhero film releases this year like Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Captain America: Civil War. And it looks like the internet’s general undermining of the film has now translated to its current critical reception, as the film sports a measly 47% on Rotten Tomatoes at the time that I’m writing this, which actually makes it the lowest rated film of the main series not counting X-Men Origins: Wolverine. And yeah… I don’t get it. With great action, great characters, and the always great direction from the franchise’s best director, X-Men: Apocalypse is yet another highly entertaining and overall just straight-up awesome installment of the X-Men franchise.

10 years since the events of Days of Future Past, telepath Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) has reopened his school for Gifted Mutants in Westchester, New York while both Magneto (Michael Fassbender) and Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) have gone into hiding since the incident with the Sentinels in Washington D.C, with Mystique actually now seen as a ‘hero’ to many young mutants all over the world for her ‘efforts’ in stopping Magneto during the event. While all of this is going on, an ancient mutant known as En Sabah Nur (Oscar Isaac) is awakened from a centuries-long slumber by the cults that view him as the world’s first ‘true’ mutant. Once awakened, Apocalypse begins recruiting his new lieutenants, known as the ‘Four Horsemen’, in order to help him cleanse the Earth and preserve it for the strongest. These Four Horsemen consist of the weather-controlling Storm (Alexandra Shipp), psychic-energy wielding Psylocke (Olivia Munn), the bird-like winged mutant Angel (Ben Hardy), and Magneto, whose seemingly peaceful new life in Poland is destroyed when his past comes back to haunt him. When Apocalypse kidnaps Xavier as part of his plan for world domination, Mystique and Dr. Hank McCoy (Nicholas Hoult) AKA Beast are forced to lead a team of young mutants, including telepath Jean Grey (Sophie Turner), optical-blasting Scott Summers (Tye Sheridan) AKA Cyclops, and teleporter Kurt Wagner (Kodi Smit-McPhee) AKA Nightcrawler into a battle against Apocalypse and his four Horsemen with the fate of the whole world at stake.

I’m rather surprised that critics are taking issue with the film for being ‘overloaded’ with action. After all, this film is titled X-Men: Apocalypse, not X-Men: Minor Incident. If you ask me, the amount of action in this film is very suitable for this kind of story in which the X-Men take on an all-powerful god-like mutant. As a result, the action sequences in this film are excellent and are backed by some very impressive and obviously highly complex CGI work. And without giving too much away, this film’s Quicksilver scene somehow manages to top the equally terrific scene that came before it in Days of Future Past. In short, this is just yet another well-directed franchise effort courtesy of Bryan Singer. In keeping with the ‘time period’ theming of the past few films (e.g. the Bond-esque 60’s setting of First Class), this film’s 80’s setting is well-developed and the dialogue is punctuated with plenty of humorous lines that liven up the mood in just the right way, from Xavier’s failed attempts to hide the fact that he’s flirting with Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne), who had previously appeared in First Class but had her memory wiped by Xavier at the end of it, to one hell of a joke about trilogies at the expense of the original Star Wars trilogy. But even with the film’s great use of humor in mind, the film still manages to have some highly effective emotional moments, mostly in the form of key story beats for a few of the main characters. I mean I wouldn’t say that the film carries the exact same amount of emotional depth as some of the other X-Men films but it’s not like the film is completely lacking of it either, as I’ve seen some critics argue.

James McAvoy is once again great as the young Charles Xavier and while he may not be the main protagonist this time around compared to Days of Future Past, he still plays a vital part in the overall story. He also finally adopts the bald look that has defined the character in the comics as well as in the films when he was played by Patrick Stewart. However, for the second time in the span of three films, Michael Fassbender is ultimately the biggest standout of the cast, primarily because Magneto gets a lot of the film’s best emotional moments as he is shown to have started a family in Poland while trying to stay ‘low-key’ following the events of the previous film. As for Mystique, some have argued that Jennifer Lawrence ‘phoned it in’ this time around as a sign of her not being that interested in returning to the franchise. However, I thought that she was just as good as she’s been in the previous two films. And like how First Class was Magneto’s story and Days of Future Past was Xavier’s story, Apocalypse is arguably Mystique’s story as she finds that since the Washington incident, she has actually become a ‘hero’ for many of the younger mutants, even though she herself doesn’t see herself as one. It should also be noted that the character doesn’t appear in her natural blue form as much this time around compared to previous films, which I can definitely tell will be a problem for some fans. But considering how uncomfortable the makeup process for the character has been throughout these films (which, according to Lawrence, has recently been made easier due to the fact that the filmmakers just have her wear a full bodysuit instead of having all of the elaborate body-paint applied to her), I don’t blame her for not wanting to be like that throughout the whole film.

As far as the new cast is concerned, Singer and company did a pretty great job in casting new actors/actresses to take on the classic character roles of Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Nightcrawler, previously played by James Marsden, Famke Janssen, and Alan Cumming, respectively, in the franchise’s original film trilogy. Tye Sheridan gets quite a few really effective emotional scenes as Cyclops and fans of the character will be pleased to know he gets more to do this time around than he did in previous films. Also, as expected given their relationship in the comics, Sheridan forms a nice ‘chemistry’ with Sophie Turner as Jean Grey. I’ve seen a few articles online express criticism over her accent in the film but I personally didn’t really see anything wrong with it. Turner is excellent in the role and I’m certain that a few noteworthy scenes in this film will very much give X-Men fans hope that the character’s most iconic comic storyline will finally be done justice on the big-screen after the last attempt in doing so obviously didn’t turn out very well. Another character that makes a long-awaited return to the series is Nightcrawler, now played by Kodi-Smit McPhee. It might actually surprise some people that Nightcrawler ends up having quite a lot of humorous moments in the film and McPhee handles them quite well as the fact that this Nightcrawler is much younger than when he was played by Cumming in X2 shows that, at this point in his life, he can be rather socially awkward at times.

And finally, let’s talk about the film’s big baddie, Apocalypse, played by Oscar Isaac in a very unrecognizable turn due to the character’s great makeup design. Unfortunately, though, the character was continuously mocked online in the months leading up to the film’s release solely because of when the first photos of him were released, the internet made countless comparisons between him and Ivan Ooze, the villain from the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers film, even though subsequent trailers made it clear that he would very much look exactly like the character does in the comics. So with all of those jokes at the character’s expense out of the way, how does this big baddie fare in the film? Well overall I think that he was a decent villain. I’m not saying that he’s the ‘greatest’ comic book film villain ever and, not being a big comic reader, I have the feeling that some fans may not entirely be pleased with how the character is portrayed in the film. Still, Isaac did manage to make Apocalypse a pretty intimidating villain thanks to his strong commanding presence, especially when he’s flanked by his Four Horsemen; Storm, Psylocke, Angel, and Magneto. Granted, none of them really get much to do in the film, other than Magneto of course, but at the very least they each get at least one memorable moment in the film. So in conclusion, while this version of the character may not entirely live up to expectations, he’s still a pretty solid antagonist in his own right.

While I usually try not to bring in notes from other critics’ reviews to use in my own reviews, I honestly don’t get some of the criticisms towards this film. The action is over-done? If you ask me this film has just the right amount of action for a story of this scale. The film is emotionless? There are plenty of great emotional scenes in this film, many of which come from characters like Magneto and Cyclops. I could go on and on but I think you get the idea. This is most definitely a film that is far better than what its current RT score suggests, which I’m now certain is yet another sign of how this film has been getting the shaft in terms of positive buzz compared to other superhero films like Batman v Superman and Captain America: Civil War. In short, X-Men: Apocalypse is yet another highly entertaining installment in the franchise that has redeemed itself over the past few years, primarily by erasing the events of its weakest installments from its canon. It’s well-directed, well-acted, and features some incredibly awesome action sequences. Now with all of that said, would I say that it is ‘better’ than Days of Future Past? No, not really but understandably that is a very tough act to follow and I didn’t go into this film expecting it to be better than its immediate predecessor. With that in mind, this film is simply yet another well-made installment of the franchise and one that is most certainly becoming a very, VERY underrated entry in the superhero genre. Needless to say, I’m very excited to see where the franchise goes from here considering that this film is supposedly the final installment of the First Class era series.   

Rating: 4.5/5