Movie Review: ‘X-Men: Dark Phoenix’ Blu-ray

by | Sep 14, 2019 | Movie Reviews, Movies | 0 comments

Review by Lauryn Angel

Dark Phoenix is Simon Kinberg’s second attempt to do the story of Jean Grey’s transformation into a god-like being, and, while it’s better than his first attempt (X-Men: The Last Stand), that’s not saying much.

After the events of X-Men: Apocalypse, Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) and Beast (Nicholas Hoult) are the last of the first class, with Raven leading a much younger team comprised of Storm (Alexandra Shipp), Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPee), Quicksilver (Evan Peters), Scott Summers (Tye Sheridan) and Jean Grey (Sophie Turner). At the behest of the President of the United States, Charles sends the team into space to rescue a NASA mission gone wrong, despite the protests of Beast and Raven. It’s on this mission that Jean has a close encounter with a force that NASA reported as a solar flare. After she absorbs this force, she seems fine – more than fine, even – leading to her nickname “Phoenix.” Soon, however, Jean this force causes trouble for Jean, leading to her leaving the X-Men. And to complicate matters, a group of aliens is looking for Jean. Led by Vuk (Jessica Chastain), these aliens want to control the force themselves and take over Earth (of course).

The movie starts off well, and even passes the Bechdel test in the first thirty minutes. Sophie Turner does a great job of conveying Jean’s emotional turmoil, but many of the other actors seem unenthusiastic – Jennifer Lawrence and Michael Fassbender particularly seem to be merely going through the motions.

And then there’s the plot. The film focuses on Jean Grey’s feelings of rage and betrayal, and rightly so, but skimps on the motivation of the aliens. All we really know about the D’Bari in the film is that they want the power of the Phoenix force, and if Jean Grey doesn’t go along with their plans, they’ll take it from her. That may be enough for some viewers, but I prefer my villains a little less flat. Part of the issue may be related to the re-writes. The last third of the film was reportedly too similar to another recent superhero film, so it was rewritten. Perhaps somewhere in there, the D’Bari’s motivation was lost? Or maybe Kinberg is counting on comic book fans to know that Jean Grey destroyed the D’Bari homeworld in the original Dark Phoenix saga? Whatever the case, the villains, while powerful and destructive, aren’t very interesting.

Dark Phoenix is not the worst X-Men movie out there, and it’s a definite improvement over X-Men: The Last Stand’s take on the story.