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Dark Phoenix Movie Review

Dark Phoenix (or alternatively X-Men: Dark Phoenix) is a 2019 superhero film from Fox directed by Simon Kinberg and starring James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender. It’s a messy flick.

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“The mind is a fragile thing.

Takes only the slightest tap

to tip it in the wrong direction“

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Yes, they’ve done it again. Basically, this entire storyline had already been done before in ‘X-Men: The Last Stand’ which is a solid, even underrated movie in its own right so it did not need a remake. But they made it, and the end result is less than satisfactory.

There is a lot to talk about here, and I will touch on the industry aspect later on, but let’s first talk about the movie’s quality itself. The plot is standard as it’s just another remake, and the emotional moments are muted in favor of the action spectacle.

There are some moving moments here, but nowhere near enough. As for said action, it’s actually very good, and sometimes even quite inspired, especially in the case of that train sequence which is exhilarating and very memorable in set, fights and spectacle.

James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender are among the acting standouts of course once again. They are terrific as these great, iconic characters, and I wish they got more to do, and more memorable moments as they needed them so badly.

Jennifer Lawrence is already out emotionally in this movie so her performance is very subdued and almost even flat which really annoyed me. Beast is pretty good and actually he got a lot to do here whereas Sophie Turner is a solid Jean Grey, but she needed more kick-ass moments as she got only a few here and there.

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Cyclops, Storm and all of the others are okay for the little screen time that they received, but I need to talk about the villains. I honestly really disliked them. As a group, they are fine. But individually, all of them are so bland and forgettable. Jessica Chastain herself as Vuk is very disappointing. They promised us great Chastain action and we never really got that. Yes, she looks cool in costume and mannerisms, but she was never as badass as promised, and the way she died was also hugely disappointing. And a lack of backstory really hurt her.

Dark Phoenix looks good actually owing to its tremendously huge budget of around two hundred million. The special effects are very strong, and the action is mostly very well executed, and the highlight of the movie. The dialogue is okay, though aggressively feminist at times, but the emotion isn’t there. It’s also too dark and it needed more humor, and more momentum to it and drama for sure.

So basically what happens here is that Disney bought Fox and maybe Dark Phoenix was already a mess quality-wise, but what really annoyed me is how the company basically disposed of it and threw it onto the market with very little marketing.

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The lack of a stronger marketing campaign led to not only diminished box-office returns, but even a box-office bomb. And that annoyed me even more than the film’s quality which is passable and never as horrible as most would claim. But the movie needed to get more audience attention given that it’s the last movie in the franchise, and it was just a shame seeing it go like this as it’s one of my favorites in terms of series.

Dark Phoenix is a giant mess. It’s actually not as terrible as many said given that it has some good character moments, it looks and sounds good and the action is pretty strong with the train sequence being the standout for sure, but it turned out incredibly disappointing of a last chapter nonetheless owing to a weaker emotional investment, an overly dark tone to it, a poor Jessica Chastain villain and a rehashed storyline with a lack of bigger momentum to it.

My Rating – 3