As obsessive as I am with the MCU, it was the X-Men who were one of my first comic loves. Long before Hugh Jackman donned his first set of claws, I was watching cartoons and reading books and playing video games. I was floored when I first saw they were gonna appear on screen. I remember when the second one came out, it hinted at the Dark Phoenix storyline, and I remember someone explaining it to me and I got really excited. Then The Last Stand came out and went into the storyline and it was rather unsatisfying, nowhere near the impact that I’d come to expect from it. Now we’ve got another attempt at it, this time with our junior X-people
We’re back in the early 90’s, before that first X-Men film was released, and our young team goes out to space (like you do) to rescue some astronauts. Something happens to Jean that should have killed her, but instead imbues her with unimaginable power. Power that she can’t control. Power that hurts people. Uh oh.
Because I love this X-World so much, I was enjoying spending time there with this cast and characters. I loved the sequences and their personalities and everything that I’ve come to expect. But that’s all it was–expected. Yes it checked every box for what should go into an X-Movie, but it would check the box and then move on. There wasn’t anything new added in at all. The film was completely going thru the motions.
It’s especially frustrating because this was supposed to be a redemption for a beloved storyline and it didn’t get any better treatment. Also not getting good treatment was Jessica Chastain who came in as a mysterious baddie. She particularly got the brunt of hte bad writing and didn’t have anything that’s worthy of her caliber of actress. But otherwise I can’t so much say that the film was bad overall, just incredibly lazy
Dark Phoenix – \m/ \m/ \n