Dark Phoenix

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SPOILER-FREE REVIEW

     With the arrival of Dark Phoenix, Fox’s long running X-Men franchise comes to a conclusion. Although there technically remains one more film on the slate (next year’s New Mutants), Dark Phoenix will probably be the last X-Men movie to feature Professor X (James McAvoy), Magneto (Michael Fassbender), and the other core characters who have formed the focus of the 19-year, 12-movie franchise.

     The movie takes a second stab at Marvel Comics’ Phoenix Saga, in which Jean Grey (Sophie Turner), becomes possessed by the powerful and malevolent Phoenix Force. In this retelling, she’s caught between her X-Men friends and a sinister alien (Jessica Chastain) with her own designs on Jean’s new power. Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan, Alexandra Shipp, Kodi Smit-McPhee, and Evan Peters reprise their roles as the X-Men heroes Mystique, Beast, Cyclops, Storm, Nightcrawler, and Quicksilver, respectively.

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     I am sincerely disappointed to tell you that Dark Phoenix is, indeed, bad. X-Men movies have been self-serious before, and they’ve been “meh” before, but even at their worst, there’s always been a spark of energy. In the previous Phoenix Saga adaptation, X-Men: The Last Stand, there were moments like the playful ending shot, in which we see that Magneto’s powers hadn’t been eliminated after all. The Wolverine had an alternate ending with Wolverine’s classic comic book suit. Even X-Men: Apocalypse featured the X-men’s stirring trumpet fanfare, cognitively linking it to earlier, better adventures. There is no such energy in Dark Phoenix, which frankly feels like a phoned-in effort from Fox.

     Dark Phoenix is half a movie in both duration and depth. In duration, because it’s devastatingly anticlimactic; I thought we had a full hour of story material to go when it became clear that no, the movie expects this action sequence to stand for the conclusion. In depth, because nobody receives any character development except Jean Grey and Professor X, and their arcs achieve mixed results. Jean’s arc seems scattershot and rushed, whereas Professor X’s, though clumsy, manages to be one of the movie’s bolder, more interesting features. (It contests his status as the group’s unchallenged, patriarchal source of wisdom.)

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     A few scenes in Phoenix come off downright laughable, and the actors know it. Nobody in this impeccably qualified cast seems particularly invested in the action or committed to their characters. Their disinterest is especially conspicuous given that Dark Phoenix intends to pay off narrative threads that many of these actors have been working on since 2011 (when X-Men: First Class released).

     The movie’s best moment arrives just before the end, where we find Phoenix’s most substantial action sequence. Director Simon Kinberg doesn’t stage every piece of it effectively, but it’s exciting and a bit more raw than we usually get in an X-Men movie. The problem is that although it might have passed as a mid-movie action sequence (it actually hearkens back to one of The Last Stand’s halfway set pieces), it hardly counts as a climactic, third act blowout—much less the conclusion of an entire franchise.

photo courtesy of gq.com

     It’s like the filmmakers haven’t seen other superhero movies before; they recycle the same moments as if they expect them to keep amazing audiences time and time again. Jean Grey can lift a helicopter with her mind? Cool! But Magneto lifted a submarine back in 2011. We have seen other superhero movies, we have seen these beats played out before and with more imagination. So even when Dark Phoenix finally kicks into gear, it never musters enough enthusiasm to give the X-Men a fitting farewell.

     Dark Phoenix is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action including some gunplay, disturbing images, and brief strong language.

TRAILER