Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence, in her fourth outing as Mystique, once again comes off like she’s just showing up for residuals. Poor Tye Sheridan can’t act past his goggles as Cyclops, Alexandra Shipp has a thankless job as Storm, and Kodi Smit-McPhee and Evan Peters are just there now as Nightcrawler and Quicksilver. This franchise has long committed the crime of wasting talents like Halle Berry, Nicholas Hoult, Michael Fassbender, and now, Jessica Chastain, whose Dark Phoenix character is literally not a character but a shell for an alien villain. But that’s not Fox’s X-Men, and it’s certainly not Dark Phoenix. That’s been Marvel’s secret of the MCU: Exceptional characterization has often excused mediocre action. Normally, when action falls apart, audiences rely on strong characters to siphon off energy, or else they’ve dozed off in their seats. But when the result is as abysmal as Dark Phoenix, I’m only reminded of that amusing behind the scenes footage of the The CW show Supergirl where Supergirl and The Flash wail their arms around before the special effects are put in. It takes a special alchemy of director, actor, and post-production to make a work of art out of characters shooting lightning. Dark Phoenix, like all X-films, is filled with amazing superpowers, yet every action set-piece is a variant of cars flipping over. Even as a standalone film, Dark Phoenix is a cycle of flat set-pieces and accomplished actors in bad costumes (boy howdy do those Grant Morrison costumes look awful) stumbling over wooden dialogue.Įven the “fun” parts of the movie - the few times the X-Men act like X-MEN and throw special effects at each other - are spectacularly lifeless. Instead, it’s a rote alien invasion shoved into a confusing drama with hazy focus on its world, its stakes, and its ensemble of indistinguishable mutants. Gone is the intergalactic political intrigue mixed with soap opera melodrama that was in Claremont’s story. I say “adapt” in quotations because Dark Phoenix is an X-Men movie (hardly) in name only. Sophie Turner is at the center of 'Dark Phoenix' as a power-crazed Jean Grey, though the film's actual emotional core is confusing and muddled. Soon, Jean’s powers grow increasingly out of control, forcing the X-Men to stop one of their own from destroying the world. Set in 1992 (though you can’t tell because all the X-Men come dressed in Banana Republic’s Fall 2013 catalog), Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) becomes possessed by a cosmic alien force after a rescue mission in space. Helmed by series producer Simon Kinberg in his directorial debut, the film “adapts” the historic Dark Phoenix Saga by writer Chris Claremont. Opening on Friday, June 7, Dark Phoenix is the final X-Men movie that caps off a multi-film series that began when Clinton was in office and most people hadn’t yet heard of Thanos. In that regard, it is actually fitting Dark Phoenix is aggressively dumb, pointless, and devoid of emotion from anyone involved in its creation. Soulless in everything from concept to execution, Dark Phoenix is the corporate-mandated mercy kill for a dead franchise whose only real legacy is convincing other studios to produce better superhero movies. That’s how hokey Dark Phoenix begins, ending the final chapter of the X-Men with a loud, deafening thud. In the first ten minutes of Dark Phoenix, a NASA shuttle explodes, which compels the president to call the X-Men for help on a black desk phone emblazoned with a silver “X.” The only thing missing here is a spinning graphic, a rockin’ theme song, and a commercial break for Fruit Loops.
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