Review: X-Men Dark Phoenix

*A flick of missed opportunities*

X-Men Dark Phoenix is the last X-Men film from Fox Studios which is directed by Simon Kinberg, who was one of the writers of the ill-received X-Men Last Stand which also had the Dark Phoenix storyline.

This is Kinbergs’ first film as a director and it was a huge responsibility to handle the film which supposedly closes Fox’s X-Men Franchise.

I’m not going to say that he fails in each aspect, but there are more failures than successes which leads to the film being a bit of a mess.The first act is brilliantly set up though. Each character gets to shine and Jean Gray’s (Sophia Turner) backstory is set up perfectly. The problem arises after Jean gets the Phoenix Force. In the comics, it is supposed to be the most powerful force which can obliterate planets. Of course, it won’t be realistic if shown on film but what Kinberg decides to show is so grounded, that it feels like he doesn’t know what to do with the character.

But Sophia Turner, with what she was given to work with, gave her best and made Jean (the protagonist) as believable as possible.

She was able to bring out the conflict between her due to the previously mentioned *Phoenix Force*. The second act drags and it feels that the writers didn’t know what to do here. Vuk (Jessica Chastain) is one of the main characters of the film who we know barely about. I can’t explain much about the character as it would be going in the spoiler territory but it felt that Jessica Chastain’s Vuk was just brought in to differentiate the storyline from the comics and it falls flat. That’s the main problem I had.

The third and final act feels like a completely different film.

It is a huge and massive action sequence taking place in a train and it works as the action choreography felt raw and impactful but loses weight due to the terrible second act.

The best aspect were the performances of each and every single character. James McAvoy as Professor Xavier as always was good and so was Michael Fassbender as Magneto.

The feeling of finality was brought through them.

The one thing which amazed me was the background score. I didn’t realize it that it was Hans Zimmer’s until after the movie. His theme elevated this film by giving a more grounded feeling to it.

I think that a 20% score on Rotten Tomatoes is too harsh for this film. It was an honest effort by Kinberg as a debut director to give a fitting end to this 19 year old franchise which unfortunately does not succeed but it definitely deserves more than 20%.

In my opinion, I think you as an audience should not be swayed by the reviews and should make your decision yourself.

You never know, you may actually end up liking it.

———————RATING——————–

1) Performance: Excellent

2) Treatment: Good

3) Story: Weak

4) Recommendation: Worth A Shot.