Dark Phoenix X-Men: Dark PhoeniX Rate and Review Thread (spoilers in spoiler tags)

[psylockolussus]

Since the movie is already out in some countries including mine, tomorrow (in a few hours). I think its time to make a separate thread for user reviews. Put the spoilers in spoiler tags at least for the first two weeks of Dark PhoeniX's theaterical run.

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[TheVileOne]

This is the worst X-Men movie I've ever seen.

Cyclops never comes into his own as the leader.

Mystique is still the leader of the team.

Quicksilver is entertaining but has almost nothing to do.

Nightcrawler getting angry and losing it is downright comical.

Nicholas Hoult's portrayal of Beast is awful.

I get that comic aging and comic timing is weird and off. But WHY DOES NO ONE EVER AGE?! It's 1992! First Class was set in 1962! It's been 30 freaking years. Why does everyone still look like they are in their 20s!

Why do Raven and Beast take human forms while they are alone with each other? Especially Mystique. Mystique steps into the X-Mansion and immediately turns into Jennifer Lawrence. But whens he's in uniform, she turns blue. WHY?! THIS MAKES NO SENSE!

Simon Kinberg was allowed to butcher one of the greatest stories in comic book history not just once but twice. He should never be allowed to work on any comic book material ever again.

Jessica Chastain is wasted. It's a shame. She's such a talented actress. She's nothing more than a one note villain.

The alien invaders are given almost no development. We only see them briefly in shadow because it has to be "GROUNDED!"

She hardly interacts or talks to anybody. When Xavier actually notices her, it's like Geez thanks xavier, she's only the freaking villain of this whole thing.

Awful villains all in service of giving us a GROUNDED COSMIC STORY! BLECH!

Disney messed up big time. THey should've never allowed to be released. I'm disgusted.

 

[CyclopsSummers]

Fed up with JLawMystiqueKatniss-like as leader !! and Magneto always young-no grey hair
This X-men new timeline is disapointing
Old timeline with RebeccaMystique terrorrist-naked was better

Waiting and hoping for several years to have Cyclops leader, Wolverine, Storm, Jean, Beast, Iceman, Psylocke ... in the same team

 

[Dumain]

Some of my notes:

- I was looking forward to the film, was willing to give Kinberg a chance, but all that went out the window once the reviews came in. I went in with already low expectations, and still left the cinema disappointed at how badly Kinberg screwed the legacy of this franchise. Because of this movie, ten years from now, people are not going to remember First Class, DOFP or Logan, but they will remember how Fox and Kinberg ran this franchise into the ground.

- the film felt rushed, especially in the beginning. They were in a rush to get the team into space.

- the music was overwhelming in parts

- action scenes were good, especially in Jean's old neighborhood

- I still don't understand what exactly Jessica's character was looking to achieve and what her true motivations were.

- it feels like this movie was trying to be "different" or was trying to bring something different to the usual CBM fare but they just failed or got lost in grand scheme.

- And they did Storm dirty in this movie. One of the best Marvel characters and they still ended up treating her like a special effects machine.

 

[Ryan1210]

Vuk was trying to use the force for resurrecting her people. She mentioned that the force destroyed her home planet & they had been keeping up with the force for a long time.

 

[Aximili86]

You're all high.

This is still top-tier X-Men. It's about Apocalypse level or a little better - inferior to all of the Singer-directed stuff or Logan, but on-par with The Wolverine or most of the MCU. Whiney-fanboys gonna whiney-fanboy.

A step down from X2 or DofP isn't necessarily bad, at least this thing's an actual movie unlike the lion's share of the recent DCEU & MCU stuff alike, Russos aside.

 

[Ryan1210]

Not enough Storm action sequence but she was like Thor in this movie. Cool power set.

 

[Dumain]

Not enough Storm action sequence but she was like Thor in this movie. Cool power set.

She got her ass handed to her by Red Lotus. There was nothing cool about that.

 

[Ryan1210]

She got her ass handed to her by Red Lotus. There was nothing cool about that.

Well she also handled a bunch of invincible aliens so I'm not complain about that.

 

[Phoenix_Flare]

Can you describe everything Storm does with her powers? Also any lines? Did she talk to anyone?

 

[Charzhin0]

First word that comes to mind is underwhelming. I will list a few pros and cons without going into too much analysis

Spoiler

Pros:
Some of the action is pretty creative, especially Storms abilities.
It definitively does not a feel or look like a remake of X3
The final train battle is better than I thought it would be
The opening 20 minutes is great
The cinematography and visuals is a upgrade from Apocalypse

Cons:
The tone is too dark and serious for too much of the time. This feels like Man of steel. There are no lighthearted or chilled scenes that are badly needed to keep the viewing experience fresh and balanced (as there was in DOFP and First Class). This is were I think Kinberg drops the ball big style from a direction POV. From the point after the space mission ends, the pacing starts to drag and the big cause of that besides the tone is the following con:

Mistique. It was annoying enough to see JLaw in the opening half an hour being the leader of the Xmen and talking to Charles in non-blue form but the movie just feels more tiring to watch whenever she is on screen. What is even worse, is that after her death, she is still indirectly dominating the screen time as Hank, Prof x and Jean all reflect on her death and what it means for them. Which just wastes screentime and loses my interest because I dont care whatsoever about Mistique!! Even in death we cant escape her presence.

Other cons include Storm being shafted again by getting no character development. Cyclops also seems wasted and says the same things on loop. Selene and Red Lotus are more or less silent henchmen. The aliens only appear in alien form for 4 seconds. Genosha looks like a scrapyard. Nicholous Hoult is in human form for more time than in Beast form. And NO PHOENIX RAPTOR!

In conclusion it is a disappointing end to the franchise. The movie from a technical POV is fine but its the least comic booky X-men movie made to date. I dont know where to exactly rank this yet. You can say Dark Phoenix is better than X3 from a narrative perspective as it focuses on Jean significantly more so, but I must admit watching X3 and even Apocalypse (rewatched these recently) was more entertaining even though they are inferior technically if that makes any sense.

Score for now would be 5/10

 

[Charzhin0]

''As a superhero blockbuster, Dark Phoenix is bland and dated, lacking the panache of First Class or the scope of Days of Future Past.''

This summary on a rotten tomato critic review sums it up very accurately.

 

[MaceB]

The whole thing demonstrates the problem. Like....Fox.... you're coming off a terrible movie, you've just been bought, and this will be the last chapter in a 19 year long endeavor. What do you do with that last-chance opportunity? Oh I know.... let's give it to the guy who wrote the worst X-Men movie so far, and give him directorial control even though he's never directed a feature before.

Like.. what were they expecting? Poor effort. Incompetence, all around.

You're all high.

This is still top-tier X-Men. It's about Apocalypse level or a little better - inferior to all of the Singer-directed stuff or Logan, but on-par with The Wolverine or most of the MCU. Whiney-fanboys gonna whiney-fanboy.

A step down from X2 or DofP isn't necessarily bad, at least this thing's an actual movie unlike the lion's share of the recent DCEU & MCU stuff alike, Russos aside.

Apocalypse was one of the worst films of the last 10 years.... if it's on par with Apocalypse, then that's extremely disappointing.

 

[ironman_rick]

This is the worst X-Men movie I've ever seen.


I get that comic aging and comic timing is weird and off. But WHY DOES NO ONE EVER AGE?! It's 1992! First Class was set in 1962! It's been 30 freaking years. Why does everyone still look like they are in their 20s!

Somehow the events in DOFP made all of them age slower.............. Haha.

I can't believe they still wanna do a 10-year time jump when all of them look so young. This movie is set in 1990s.... The 1st x-men movie is set in early 2000s and look at how old magento and xavier look then ? Fox has butchered this franchise.

 

[Aximili86]

Hyperbole at its finest. Apocalypse, while pretty blahhh, is better than the lion's share of the modern DC flicks and like a half-dozen of the MCU flicks.

 

[shinlyle]

Hyperbole at its finest. Apocalypse, while pretty blahhh, is better than the lion's share of the modern DC flicks and like a half-dozen of the MCU flicks.

Dude, Apocalypse is a mess. From the make-up to the story, it's as messy as can be, and the worst X-Film since X3. Wolverine's cameo and Quicksilver's rescue scene were the only cool parts, and Apocalypse looked just...awful.

Also, being better than the lion's share of the DC movies isn't much of an achievement.

 

[ironman_rick]

Hyperbole at its finest. Apocalypse, while pretty blahhh, is better than the lion's share of the modern DC flicks and like a half-dozen of the MCU flicks.

Subjective........

I actually rate apocalypse lower than Thor - TDW.

 

[Filmfan93]

Hyperbole at its finest. Apocalypse, while pretty blahhh, is better than the lion's share of the modern DC flicks and like a half-dozen of the MCU flicks.

Apocalypse is one of the weakest CBM's ever made and worse than even the weakest MCU film (which is probably Thor: TDW, and even that is a better crafted film).

The whole film looks like a videogame. Everyone in it does nothing. Isaac's make up is laughably bad and he doesn't have any abilities, besides the generic "telepathy and moving debris" powers. Scott, Storm and Nightcrawler don't do anything either. Magneto and Xavier become friends at the end after Magneto joining Apocalypse and killing thousands of people throughout the film. Jean becomes Phoenix before her Dark Phoenix film where she actually receives that power lol.

Should I go on?

 

[Kevin Roegele]

Everyone seemed desperate to slate this movie ever since it was announced, and unsurprisingly many of the reviews are negative. But in fact, it's a solid movie. It's decently made, it's competent. It's a 3 out of 5 movie. No, it's not a great ending to the series, and no, it's not as good as Endgame, but it really is a no way near the disaster it's been labelled as from day one.

- It's dramatic. It doesn't try to be a huge action-heavy movie, or mix in lots of comedy. Lessons were learnt from Apocalypse. Dark Pheonix is primarily a character-driven drama, and all the action comes from that drama. There are no set-pieces for the sake of it.

- When the action does come, it's intense. The whole climax is furious and the characters - including the X-Men and Magneto - really don't hold back. It's worth seeing for this sequence alone.

- This is a very downbeat movie. Grey skies, rain, and a moody, ominous atmosphere throughout. It's played less like a superhero film, and more akin to something like The Ring with Naomi Watts.

- The characters - specifically Charles and Eric - feel more like real people here than ever before. Less hero and villain, more flawed people, and they are brought down to earth here.

- It's not really about the X-Men as X-Men - they spend very little time in costume - it's more about how they fall apart as a family. It's like a very, very explosive family argument.

- The Pheonix story, while not as epic as the comics, is certainly done much more effectively and on a bigger scale than The Last Stand. Jean is the good person struggling with incredible power, as in the comic, and not the brooding witch Famke Janssen played the character as in X3. And she doesn't wait 'til the end to unleash her powers, either. Everyone in the film, friend or foe, suffers her wrath, and sometimes it's shocking.

- If you're looking for a triumphant conclusion to the series, or a Marvel type experience, this isn't either of those. Instead, it's a dramatic, character-driven story that touches on space missions and aliens and superheroics, but is really about conflict between the X-Men themselves. It manages to be both epic and intimate. It's worth watching.

 

[Aximili86]

Pretty much, Kevin.

Fanboys gonna fanboy, basically. Wouldn't expect anything more from the usual types. These guys had already decided they hated this movie a year ago.

 

[TheVileOne]

Somehow the events in DOFP made all of them age slower.............. Haha.

I can't believe they still wanna do a 10-year time jump when all of them look so young. This movie is set in 1990s.... The 1st x-men movie is set in early 2000s and look at how old magento and xavier look then ? Fox has butchered this franchise.

They discovered the fountain of youth between movies and it kept them from aging!

 

[Electrix]

Going in after Apocalypse and the Rotten Tomatoes score I wasn't expecting much and am more than ready for the Marvel reboot, but actually enjoyed Dark Phoenix. Some fun character moments and cool action which made my inner X-Fan happy. Nice VFX, and Storm had more than 3 lines which is a win right there.

The story could have been better, and the actors elevate the dialogue which isn't great. Around 20% on Rotten Tomatoes seems low and a bit unfair but whatever. The MCU has changed what people expect from a superhero movie and Dark Phoenix is a different style, even from other X-Men movies.

 

[Z-man]

I personally thought it does not deserve the very low RT score. Unfortunately it is not as good as First Class and DOFP, but it is definitely much better than Apocalypse!

Spoiler

What I didn’t like:
-No firebird or raptor! Just a blink and you miss it bird towards the end.
-Can’t believe they recycled Jean’s Phoenix “matter disintegration” powers from X3!
-The dialogue! There were so many bad lines from everyone!
-Haphazard pacing. Unsure if this was the result of the re-shoots or editing. It just jumps from one place to another without any build up especially in the first half.
-Storm, as great as her power scenes are, she gets the least interesting parts along with Quicksilver.
-Mystique and Beast in human form.


What I did like:
-The action scenes from Central Park through the train fight and until Jean vs aliens. Thought they were really creative. Quite surprised with how great Nightcrawler was and Magneto especially when he crushed a train carriage with all the humanoid aliens in it. Jessica Chastain, as one dimensional as her character was, is a presence on screen. I like how powerful her character is.
-Beautiful cinematography.
-Hans Zimmer’s score.

I am sure there’s more stuff that I don’t and do like, but that’s all I can remember for now.

 

[Kevin Roegele]

Another thing the movie deserves credit for - which a lot of fans won't like - is that the characters serve the story, not the other way around. It doesn't try to give every character a subplot just to please the fans of said characters. Everyone does what they need to do for the sake of the drama, and no more.

 

[Charzhin0]

I actually appreciate Apocalypse a little more now since Dark Phoenix. Apocalypse has major issues but it still is a fantastical and a wacky CBM with some cool moments. Whilst oscar isaacs make-up isnt great, he follows pretty close to the personality of comic book apocalypse; bombastic and egomaniacal.

Dark Phoenix neither felt like a comic book movie or had a grand villain with a strong identity. Now you can turn around and say well that sounds like Logan (an inspiration according to Kinberg), but Logan had Hugh Jackman and Patrik Stewart at their absolute best performance wise, and Mangolds superior craftsmanship. Sophie Turner isnt good enough to carry the movie by herself