So the new (and mostly final) Fox X-Men movie Dark Phoenix is out and it’s the very definition of a shrug. I say this is mostly the final Fox produced X-Men flick since Disney (having bought Fox and gotten the X-Men back for Marvel Studios) probably will not be using this cast and development team for future work.
Regardless of all that behind-the-scenes hubub, yeah… this movie is a great big “meh”. A “whatever”. A shrug. I’m so morbidly indifferent to this movie, I can’t even say it’s bad. It’s too average, too mediocre, to get worked up over. It’s bland. It’s got a tinge of stinky boredom but it’s not exactly boring… not aggressively so. It’s not good either though… it just lays there like a wet paper towel, doing nobody any good, impressing no one, and just kind of existing as a sad reminder of a time when you hadn’t dropped the wet paper towel and, in fact, had a dry one.
So this is a retelling of the Phoenix/Dark Phoenix storyline that was already told in the somehow better (or maybe worse… but at least SOMETHING) X-Men: The Last Stand. Jean Grey – the mutant with the best name EVAR – develops super-duper psychic powers (because she HAD superpowers before, but now they are super duper) and becomes a problem for the good guy (and bad guy) X-Men.
The Phoenix Saga is one of the best known and most loved of the X-Men stories in comics of which I only have a passing familiarity. But this one (and Last Stand) do not do it justice from what I’ve read… and certainly this movie doesn’t argue for the story being of any interest or importance. But that’s probably because they butchered it… apparently simplified it and cut right to the Evil Jean thing which apparently the original story gets to in time (after she saves the universe with her newborn powers… but the flicks just like skipping that part).
Because one of the mistakes this movie makes is just doing things too fast. It starts with a space mission in the first minute and just rushes to the good part… where Jean Grey goes from 0 to evil so fast you’d think they had built the story and character up enough to justify it (hint: they did not). And they need to convince us that Professor X is now a egotistical gloryhound… and that a a marginally bad day for Jean Grey would turn the government back against mutants… keeping in mind they almost wiped out humanity last movie. The movie is in the fast lane when it only just merged onto the freeway.
I wish I could say the acting was good but it’s only ok. Some of the stalwarts like Fassbender and MacAvoy are fine. Jennifer Lawrence is just happy this is the last time she has to wear that blue makeup. Other actors seem to be doing whatever they want, sometimes with enjoyment, sometimes just waiting for the paycheck. I guess Sophie Turner (aka Sansa Stark) is fine – she’s asked to do the heavy lifting in dramatic scenes… but those scenes are so short and rushed it hardly matters how good or bad she is.
The action scenes are bland and not exciting. There’s a lot going on – all the mutants get their turn with their powers – but there’s no energy to any of it. In fact, the big action set piece that ends the movie… actually had me saying “Wait… that was the big 3rd action finale?” Wet paper towel. The whiff. And I guess the final final moment had all the impact of Ang Lee’s Hulk Cloud Fight (only without that film’s failed attempt at emotional resonance).
So… yeah. I guess I’m saying don’t bother. You ain’t missing anything. You ain’t even missing a cheekily cornball dumb movie like X-Men Origins: Wolverine (something so unintentionally bad and funny). You aren’t missing a good movie… you aren’t missing a bad movie. You are barely missing a movie and you certainly won’t remember it in T minus 1 week. It’s the dictionary definition of contractual obligation that nobody really cared to try all that hard on.
Wait… it cost 200 million bucks? I forgot to mention the movie feels small and inconsequential. Nothing in it feels like a 200 million dollar picture… but apparently they reshot the thud of an ending. Shame this is what they wound up with…
Score: 70