REVIEW: ‘Dark Phoenix’ rises from the ashes of its predecessors just to flame out
“Dark Phoenix” is the latest installment of the X-Men franchise and it explores what happens when a beloved member of the team goes, for lack of a better word, rogue. Like previous X-Men films, “Dark Phoenix” is enjoyable, but relies heavily on the actors and characters to tell the story instead of a coherent storyline.
The Simon Kinberg written and directed film stars Sophie Turner (Jean Grey), James McAvoy (Professor Charles Xavier), Michael Fassbender (Magneto), Tye Sheridan (Scott Summers), Jennifer Lawrence (Raven), Nicholas Hoult (Beast), Alexandra Shipp (Storm), Kodi Smit-McPhee (Nightcrawler), Evan Peters (Quicksilver) and Jessica Chastain (Vuk).
The film suffers from forced dialogue and a completely thoughtless secondary story, but the Dark Phoenix storyline is intrinsically interesting and the acting is some of the best in the history of X-Men films. The filmmakers were more deliberate in the way the mutant abilities are expressed by seeming more organic to the characters.
The divide between loyalty and anger is explored well in this film especially through Storm and Beast, who both serve as foils to Cyclops and Professor Xavier, respectively.
While the film uses an alien entity, the Phoenix force, to influence the actions of the main character, the plot is an allegory of the damage of unchecked mental illness. By refusing to allow Jean Grey to cope with the trauma of her past, these repressed memories spiral her into anxiety and depression.
It also shows that when people force themselves into helping without being asked, it causes severe issues later on in life. The mental illness aspect of “Dark Phoenix” is not explicitly stated but is extremely apparent in Turner’s portrayal.
One of the major missteps in “Dark Phoenix” is Jessica Chastain’s character, Vuk. The comic book, and canonical, story of the Phoenix entity is closely intertwined with Lilandra, the Empress of the Shi’ar race.
Leading up to the release of the film, fans believed Chastain would be playing Lilandra. However, this is not the case. The massive reshoots and screenplay overhauls ends up painting Vuk as a non-character, who serves little purpose and only adds confusion. The only thing Vuk brings to the film is her extraterrestrial cronies whose fight sequences with the X-Men provides one of the best aspects of the film.
The fights in the train sequence are one of the high points of “Dark Phoenix.” This scene, which involves an insane amount of people and moving parts, does not come off clunky or busy. It is truly one of the best sequences in all of the X-Men films with mutant abilities being used in the way they were intended. Magneto is not simply crushing metal, Nightcrawler is not just teleporting out of places and Cyclops is not just firing off a series of terrible shots. It is a scene that allows the mutants to shine and keeps true to the comic book version of the characters, shown especially with Professor Xavier’s extreme dependence on Cyclops.
Characterization is much better in this film compared to “X-Men: Apocalypse” as the film’s writers figured out to be true to comics without being overly campy. Cyclops fits in as a leader who tends to have moments of rose-tinted idiocy, Professor Xavier is the egotistical and narcissistic genius who is truly at fault for what happens, and Jean Grey is not a villain or the girl who cannot do anything for herself, but instead someone who is alone, hurt and betrayed.
The film does not commit some of the sins of its predecessors. No longer does the X-Men films rely heavily on characters like Wolverine or Magneto to save the day. Unlike other superhero films (“Captain America: Civil War” excluded), the themes in “Dark Phoenix” is good versus evil. Instead, there is not necessarily a hero, just like there is no definitive villain.
The X-Men films are not known for their plot lines, dialogue or general quality of the film, however, they are known for having some of the best casting across all superhero films. This film is no different.
McAvoy shines as Xavier, Sheridan’s Cyclops is nuanced and reminiscent of the animated series “X-Men Evolution,” and Turner’s turn as Jean Grey is stunning. While her accent slips in a few places, and almost exclusively when she growls as she succumbs to the Phoenix entity, her eyes and facial expressions show the audience the true turmoil inside evoking memories of Turner’s role as Sansa Stark in the earlier seasons of “Game of Thrones.”
While the new cast wears the X-Men uniform with aplomb, not every performance is as winning.
Jennifer Lawrence is not only the youngest person to ever win a Best Actress Oscar, but is also universally acclaimed even in bad films. Lawrence is known for blending into character seamlessly without going method, but this turn as Mystique is by far her worst performance yet. She is not Mystique in this film, but rather an unhappy actress in criminally bad make-up who seems to want out of franchise she agreed to when she was 20.
“Dark Phoenix” is not “Avengers: Endgame,” but it never promised to be. It is a film that tried to right the wrongs of X-Men films past, and in that goal, it somewhat succeeds. Even though the Dark Phoenix storyline in the comics is extremely detailed and convoluted, the film managed to water it down and still be kind of pleasurable for audiences.
“Dark Phoenix” is far from a perfect superhero film, and in the wake of high-quality films like “Thor: Ragnarok” and “Black Panther,” it falls flat. Nevertheless, it is not a bad film, just not the one that was promised. Fans of the comics will walk away disappointed, but fans of the previous films will probably be satisfied. The moments of greatness in the film will have audiences wondering what the film could have been prior to the reshoots which, done in the shadow of the Fox-Disney merger, that ruined the film.
While “Dark Phoenix” is better than other films in the franchise, it did fall victim to the overarching issue that plagues all X-Men films, a great cast with a terrible storyline.
