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This past week, Dark Phoenix came out in theaters and today on I am here to review it! Let’s get right into it!
The Good
There is not much that is good in the movie, but let us try to find some. Let us start with the plot. While the iconic story has some spotlight within the film, the film mostly changes the story of the iconic comic book. This is so that it takes less explaining for the viewer as to why everything is happening. One of the things I enjoyed was the change of plot from the comic book storyline to the movie version, as it made it easier to follow. The special effects were also well done, and the action set pieces are good fun as well. I saw the movie with someone who was a casual X-Men fan, seeing a couple of the films here and there. During the movie, the person had a good time with the set pieces and chuckled at some of the humor so another good point is that to the casual moviegoer, the movie might be okay! Other than that, nothing else that stands out.
The Bad
Where to begin? Off the bat, you can see that movie suffers from massive script edits and reshoots. Usually, when movies go through reshoots, they make it better! In this case, the film is edited so bad that you can almost tell which shots were redos and which are the from the original cut. That is just the beginning. The characters in the movie have no emotion behind any of them. The main focus of the film is, of course, Jean Grey, played by Game of Thrones very own Sophie Turner. Her portrayal of Jean with the Phoenix Force is bland, almost dry. Her motivation for acting the way she does is so dull, and there is no depth to her portal.
On top of that, fellow cast mates just looked as if they did not want to be there. Everyone seems uninspired and almost tired throughout the entire movie. All though there are some exceptions to this with Micheal Fassbender as Magneto and James McAvoy as Professor X. Along with the cast issue, the film’s new plot is very predictable from the jump. This is the one X-Men story that they had to nail out of the park. Dark Phoenix is on top comic book stories of all time. The fact of the matter is that when tackling a story that is just as iconic as this, a lot more care should’ve been put in it for the fans. It is sad to say, but the whole movie feels lazy and unwanted.
Overall, the movie is a waste of potential. From the lazy acting to the clean (but predictable) plot, the film is just an overall waste and a sad way for the X-Men to go out under Fox. The only bright side I think to this is now we have a beautiful clean slate to see what Disney can do with them in the MCU! My overall score for Dark Phoenix is a 4/10. What did you think? For all things cinema, you are in the right place at The Cinema Spot!
