X-MEN: DARK PHOENIX (2019)


X-MEN: DARK PHOENIX (2019)

Tagline: Every Hero Has a Dark Side

(Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi) [PG-13]

In this one, the X-MEN are kind of riding high after defeating APOCALYPSE and saving the world. They have gained the trust of the US government enough that they are even allowed to go try and prevent a space disaster. They do, but Jean Grey is affected by a power there, and now can’t control it. As her emotions and anger are taken hostage and turned into a violent turn of events that threatens the existence of the X-MEN. 

So when I go on some garbage hive mind critics site, I kind of expect those critics are going to disagree with me. I really don’t fit the mold of a critic, I actually am a movie fan, just pure and simple. It pains me to dislike something. I would rather just tell you how awesome it is. Well, this movie had me troubled. I didn’t like the previews and I had tons of movie fans on social media telling me it was garbage. So it wasn’t just the usual critics I can almost count on. If they say something sucks, 84.5% of the time, I am going to love it because it’s genuinely great. Because of all this, I waiting till this movie came out on a streaming service so I wouldn’t have to pay anything additional to see it. 

Honestly, I was pretty thrilled with this. Dark Phoenix does not follow the original comics story and I really don’t expect it to. Not even the Infinity Stone storyline from MARVEL bothered doing that. Comics are wonderfully mind-blowing, and just wow, I love them, but I never expect a movie to be a comic book and vice-versa. In spite of all that being said, we do get a lot of “comic book page” moments in this and a few surprises we haven’t seen in ANY of the previous X-MEN installments. 

The acting is superb throughout. I think I like this cast far better energy-wise than the cast of the original 3 films. Jessica Chastain is a wonderful villain playing the character Vuk. Sophie Turner (who plays Jean Grey) definitely didn’t mail it in. In fact, this might be my favorite performance out of her. This is also a very strong out for Nicholas Hoult (who plays Beast or Hank McCoy). I also feel like Alexandra Shipp did a solid job as Storm this time around. I guess Jennifer Lawrence caught a bit of heat for her performance in this movie, but I didn’t see any letdown from the last installment. She has been playing this role of Raven since 2011, so maybe there is a bit of fatigue there, but it didn’t show on screen. Oddly Lawrence is now older than Rebecca Romijn was when she took the role of the original raven back in 2000. Kinda strange for the storyline since Rebecca portrayed an older Raven in X-MEN: FIRST CLASS, but those events happened well before the X-MEN’s current timeline. I know, it’s complicated being an X-MEN fan. 

Nightcrawler being one of my favorite characters was epic in this thing. I also like that we got to see the other characters doing more than just using 1-dimensional “powers” or “skills” we’ve seen before. This movie is full of highs and lows emotionally and I think Simon Kinberg was pretty successful with this directing wise. What was NOT successful was the box office take. For some reason, FOX never got fully behind this and it ended up costing the studio $120 million in losses. All for no reason. It’s a really solid flick. 

This looks to be the last we will see of the current X-MEN cast. It’s likely MARVEL/DISNEY will start introducing them slowly into the MCU, but this movie is a great addition to what FOX did with these characters and doesn’t deserve near the beating it got from critics OR fans. 

I have to give X-MEN: DARK PHOENIX a 6 out of 7. I enjoyed it every bit as much if not slightly more than X-MEN: APOCALYPSE. I have no idea how this movie got so much hate.


GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.

X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST
X-MEN: APOCALYPSE

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