Uncanny X-Men was the first superhero comic that I started collecting as a kid. It wasn't the first title that I bought (that was Marvel Comics' Transformers: Headmasters), but it was the first one that I began following religiously. The story arc that started it all was Acts of Vengence, an imprint-wide crossover where supervillains decided to pull a Strangers on a Train and planned an unexpected attack on one of their colleagues' arch-enemies. The thinking was that the surprise of a new threat would catch the heroes off guard.
In the X-Men's case, it was Iron Man's BFF, the Mandarin, teaming up with super-ninja clan, The Hand, to brainwash and supernaturally manipulate Psylocke from a proper British schoolmarm to a Japanese ninja babe. From issue 256 to 258, Wolverine had to face off against magic, mystery, and martial arts to save Betsy Braddock and find a way for them to rejoin the team. It cemented Logan, Betsy, and Jubilee's team dynamic for years.
The Mandarin arc sounds silly in a one-paragraph summary, but Chris Claremont and Jim Lee were a fantastic creative team that turned this into Shakespeare for a dorky 11-year old. As I followed the series afterward, I just grew more and more in love with these outcasts who were "hated and feared" in a world that would not accept them; a message as true for me, a nerdy kid in the 90's, as it was for people during the height of the Civil Rights Movement.
The best X-Men stories were always the ones about family, loss, and sacrifice. The ones that stuck with me (The Fall of the Mutants, the Mutant Massacre, God Loves, Man Kills, Days of Future Past, The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix, everything about the New Mutants, every issue of Excalibur ever) were all about the relationships of the team with the outside world or about the bonds between characters. It was a book about actual people.
Which is why the Fox X-Men franchise, and Dark Phoenix, in particular, is such a letdown.
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The films in Fox' X-Men universe now number 12. 13 if you count the unreleased The New Mutants. Of those, I would only count 4 as good films. That's less than 33% success rate, but better than other franchises out there. However, of those 4 films, 3 of those (Logan, Deadpool, Deadpool 2) are stories outside the main continuity.
Naturally, this is highly subjective. Many people like Vaughn's First Class (2011). I don't. You might like Singer's follow-up, Days of Future Past. I don't.
The only film in the main continuity that I feel is a solid adaptation of the original IP is X2 (2003). Yes, 2000's X-Men was a landmark accomplishment that paved the way for today's smorgasbord of superhero films, but there were so many creative decisions that made it inferior to the source material.
Don't even get me started on The Last Stand. It took what is arguably the best story from the comics, The Dark Phoenix Saga, and smooshed it into a mess of a film. It's hard to imagine that Fox would want to try it again, let alone create a film that is even worse than their first attempt.
But they do just that with their latest, Dark Phoenix.
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SPOILER WARNING!
Look, this is a crappy film. It is abysmal. So I am not going to even bother dancing around spoilers. If you are all excited to see this film, then don't read this. If you want to know why I hated it, then stick around.
Why do I hate it so much? Well, because I don't FEEL anything for any of these characters. None of the X-Men feel like real characters with real reactions. The main protagonist, Jean Grey, has been in exactly ONE movie (the first trilogy no longer counts in this continuity), and she wasn't the main focus. Now she is expected to carry a movie where she becomes a god, then becomes a devil, and then becomes a savior. I don't care.
Mystique dies in this. I don't care.
Xavier is revealed as a bad guy. I don't care.
Magneto wants to kill Jean. I don't care.
You get the point. The movie tries but fails to get you invested in these people. It starts with Jean in a car with her parents. She has an episode and puts her mom to sleep. They crash. Her mom dies. You're supposed to be sad. Xavier adopts her, telling her she "isn't broken". You're supposed to go, "awww...".
The show fast-forwards to the present where the X-Men are now the pets of the US Government, Xavier a public figure, and mutants now accepted as heroes after destroying half the planet in X-Men: Apocalypse. The US President asks Xavier to send the X-Men into space to save some astronauts on a shuttle about to be engulfed by a strange "solar flare". Beast tells him "she canna' handle eet, Capt'n!" when he asks him to take the Blackbird into orbit. They do it anyway and they're fine.
Charles tells Jean to hold the shuttle together as the others save the cardboard astronauts and she isn't able to get out in time. The "solar flare" makes an about face and zips right into her as she tries to save the Blackbird. She's fine.
Mystique yells at Charles. She's a caring leader. She's a progressive woman; "X-Woman!". blah blah.
While the mutants celebrate being awesome, some cardboard people are having dinner and some random woman (Jessica Chastain) is possessed by a dark spot on the screen checking on her dog. This is the big bad. If she has a name, I never heard it. She meets up with other aliens.
Jean blows up at their we-are-awesome party. She learns that Charles hid the fact that her dad was alive and gave her up out of fear. She runs away.
The X-Men chase her. She blows up. Mystique dies. Whoop-dee-fucking-doo.
Beast yells at Charles. He's a grieving boyfriend. Charles is bad because he manipulated Jean's mind. blah blah.
Jean runs to Magneto who is now running what I guess is an equivalent of the comics' Genosha (an island nation that Mags turns into a mutant utopia). The US comes for her. She tries to kill them, but Magneto saves them. He kicks her ass out.
Beast arrives in Genosha. Tells Mags that Jean killed Mystique. I had totally forgotten that Mags and Mystique were a thing in this franchise, which says a lot. They are like "let's kill her!" and bring along two randos (I think one of them is supposed to be Selene) and then a Big Fight ensues between them and the X-Men. Scott says a bad word.
Whee!
Jean meets alien Jessica. She gives the solar flare power to Alien Jessica. Everyone gets knocked out and the US government puts everyone on a train. Charles says he's sorry for being a dick, the whatever aliens attack, and one of the cardboard soldiers lets the muties out. More fighting. Ooo...
Phoenix is freed, she burns up all the whatever aliens, shoots into orbit, and force feeds all the solar flare power to Alien Jessy. Sad.
Now the school is now the "Jean Grey School", Beast is the headmaster, and Mags and Charles play chess.
Oh. And Jean is still flying around in space as the solar flare.
***
I hope that that's enough to tell you how bad this movie is.
The slipshod nature of the plot is enough for me to hate it, but it's also an example of poor filmmaking. For one, I can't stand the action set pieces. They are incomprehensible in their pacing and geography. You don't know where anyone is in relation to the others. The edit jumps from one shot to another with no transition or matching. The way the shots are framed remind me of the Transformers films in that it appears that there's been no thought given to how the end result will look. The fight on the street between X-Men and Magneto was the worst I've seen in a while.
Director Simon Kinberg is a veteran of this franchise. Would you believe he was largely responsible for the disastrous The Last Stand? Yet they gave him both writer and director roles for this film. He's also responsible for terrible Fantastic Four and Jumper. The lack of conviction from his actors and the awful way this is all put together speaks volumes as to his capability.
Speaking of actors, my god. This movie does no one involved a favor. It will be a bad mark on their resume for years to come. Storm, Quicksilver, Nightcrawler are all non-entities in this film, and the tiny lines they are given have no bearing on anything that happens. Sophie Turner gets the most to do, but none of it really hits home. Jessica Chastain is a blank and I'm not sure if it was her choice or the filmmakers'. Fassbender and McAvoy are Fassbender and McAvoy. This is the same schtick we've seen in 3 movies now.
And oh. my. god. Jennifer Lawrence. I love her, but she doesn't give a shit about this world, this story, or this character and it shows. It feels like NO ONE in this film is having any fun.
Usually, I can find comfort in things like photography, production design, or VFX in films where the storytelling or acting fail me, but not here. I felt the cinematography was bad here. There were too many scenes that felt far too dark to give you any sense of what was going on. The frames were often too close to give you a sense of real movement. The costume design reminded me a lot of Star Trek, with the black body suits and yellow shoulders. It didn't help that the set pieces were reminiscent of that TV budget level.
The effects were uninspiring as well. The Phoenix is a cosmic entity, born in the fires of creation, who embodies the energy of life itself. It can kick Galactus' ass. Yet here, it's just a solar flare, with a firebird effect so subtle it's blink-and-you'll-miss-it. Storm is the master of weather, but here she is an ice maker who throws tiny little bolts of electricity. None of it feels innovative or memorable.
***
Look, I am mad about this film because we've seen it done better.
I've been watching Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and say what you want about that first season, but Grant Ward's turn was unexpected and the subsequent explanation, gripping. In contrast, Charles' "betrayal" was just another "oh, my-life-is-a-lie!" bit that feels empty because there's been no foreshadowing in the series, and we don't fucking know Jean Grey at all.
Remember how the Marvel Cinematic Universe wrapped up with Avengers: Endgame earlier this year? Why did Tony's death hit home and Jean's sacrifice didn't? Because we don't fucking care about Jean. What about Logan? Why did I cry when he dies at the end? Because we spent the entire film learning about him, getting to know him. I fucking care about that character.
Why do the X-Men books work for me when Fox's Movieverse does not? Because they've invested a ton of time showcasing the relationships between these characters. Jean's love for Scott. Scott's devotion to Xavier. The original team's friendship. Storm's big sister to Colossus and Nightcrawler. Logan's grudging love for everyone on the team.
They've put in the time to show you those relationships through character interactions instead of telling you about them over the course of a first act. We care about those characters because other characters show that they care for them.
Honestly, I know that there were a lot of challenges that the studio faced while producing this movie; the changes in the creative team, the comparisons to other franchises, the Fox/Disney merger, and the last minute, massive reshoots. However, these were things that came about because of decisions that were made by those same people.
In any case, Dark Phoenix is the end of the Fox X-Universe and it was not the explosion I wanted but a flickering out. It's a sad end to something that had so much potential. Now it's going to be a long wait until Marvel Films can recast and work these characters into their own universe. I understand that the next phase of films with me focused on the Fantastic Four and the Marvel Cosmic roster of characters. We won't' get MCU X-Men for what... a decade?
I hope I'm alive to see that.