X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019)
I'm not going to sugar coat this. You would think after failing an attempt to cash in on the Phoenix with X-Men 3: The Last Stand. 20th Century Fox would do this newer attempt better. Haha wow somehow this one is even worst!!! No joke, they managed to make every character look bad.
Yes that includes Magneto too, the story has the X-Men travel out to space. They are on an rescue mission, most the astronauts were saved. Jean ended up getting stuck on a destroyed space shuffle. All of a sudden, the Phoenix Force interacts with her body. This originally would've killed her to clarify due to destroy parts of the shuffle while in outer space.
Jean starts losing control because the Phoenix. Thankfully, both Jean's appearance as well as the Phoenix itself looked notably better than in X-Men 3: The Last Stand. Sadly in this rare case, that actually isn't saying much. There's no Wolverine this time not even an cameo. Some of the newer X-Men members aren't quite right.
It's safe to say for characters like Storm or Magneto, the older actors were better. I don't think it's their fault, they didn't work. Most of the time, it's the writers at fault here. A little controversial to say considering a writer's strike going on. The movie heavily plays off Jean being an emotional teenager.
The entire third act got rewritten after it failed to test screenings. They killed Mystique off in a horrible way. Quick Silver, who had the single best scene in X-Men: Apocalypse gets one shotted. The story gets a little hard to follow when two more notable sides comes in. We have Magneto building an mutant army.
Sadly they don't show much regarding that unlike in X-Men 3: The Last Stand. Magneto was easily used the worst in this particular X-Men movie. His big scene is he uses his powers to use a lot of guns on an alien. Yes they even brought in aliens this time around. At the same time, it just doesn't connect the dots here.
The main alien is named Vuk, vastly different from the actual comic book character. Now that should be a red flag, the writers didn't know how to go about this story. When an forgotten comic book character gets used not even remotely well. The movie would've been a little better without the aliens.
Some of the movie, the X-Men tries to help Jean. Some people tried to kill her while these aliens wanted to use her. This by itself is confusing enough to the viewers. Magneto went from why you're here to wanting to kill her to ends up trying to save her in the end. If that isn't confusing to you, what the hell is then?
Not even the X-Men looked good in this movie. You already know it's bad when their main enemy, Magneto gets treated so poorly here. They do dive into Jean's past, after awhile these flash back scenes gets annoying. How many times do we need to see the same car accident Jean caused?
Even Professor Xavier is somewhat unlikable in this movie. No really, you could even argue he's more of a villain than an supporting character here. He lied to Jean about what happened, she finds out the truth. The entire movie from start to finish is so filled with drama.
The actual Phoenix isn't used well either. We mostly see the Phoenix controls Jean. It's a huge improvement over the last time they done the Phoenix story arc in a movie. Originally in X-Men 3: The Last Stand, they played the Phoenix off as Jean's dark side. There wasn't even flames coming from her body or anything symbolizing an phoenix bird.
Most Marvel fans knows the Phoenix is a cosmic entity. An Phoenix that traveling through space. A god like being with insane levels of power alone. Not accounting it's abilities that helps making it into a terrifying being. Virtually none of that original at all. Somewhat of an improvement in this movie but not by much.
It's true, the Phoenix did cameo in a critical scene the previous X-Men movie. Where the Phoenix ended up defeating Apocalypse mentally. Maybe the movie was too unclear what the story should've been. Even X-Men 3: The Last Stand gotten that right. Also Magneto was notably used better there too.
Somehow this ends up being a much bigger disappointment than both X-Men 3: The Last Stand & Apocalypse combined. Especially after you watch X-Men cartoon that aired on Fox back in the day. All of these you can watch through Disney+. The fact that show gotten the Phoenix right while two live action movies screwed it up badly.
X-Men 3: The Last Stand was a horrible mess itself. There's a handful of things I could say it's done better than this. For example, the X-Men got used better. There's a more focused story with an epic final moment. Wolverine walking slowly towards Jean. When he reaches her, he kills her to save everyone else.
X-Men: Dark Phoenix does have a more faithful take on the Phoenix. Sadly, most of it's powers got used for smaller things. The one big usage was killing off that main alien in space by burning her to pieces. The movie itself doesn't fully make it clear how it ends. No really, after this alien dies we see the Phoenix briefly that's it.
Magneto still building his mutant army despite things. This partly felt like they were recreating some scenes from X-Men: Days of Future Past. A much better X-Men movie, I highly recommend. Maybe indirectly the last X-Men movies suffered because Disney was on the verse of buying 20th Century.
All of a sudden, there was a rush to get this movie out. A likely factor in how they mess it up again. It's like you mess up once, you should already know not to do it again thing. Clearly, they didn't learned from the first time!!! I would even say this actually is the single worst X-Men movie I had the displeasure in seeing!!!
It's barely X-Men, it's barely Magneto, it's too much teen drama, why aliens? Most of all, it never fully comes together. This felt like it easily could've been two X-Men movies that suddenly got forced into becoming one. There is virtually no good scenes in this movie!!! I can't even pick a small moment I liked enough to say that's my favorite scene.
You know a movie is terrible when you can't even do that!!! The Phoenix was obviously barely an consideration. Everything else had to take front stage. But wait this is based on a particular early 80s X-Men comic story arc. WOW, you guys screwed up this bad!!! What makes this worst is they actually got an decent actress playing Jean in this movie.
There's too much unneeded teen drama, this alone further killed the movie. She confronted her father that doesn't goes well. As stated before, she confronted Professor Xavier regarding stuff when she was 8 years old. Of course, the Phoenix was going to blow these emotions to insane levels.
A good amount of the movie, Jean tries distancing herself from the X-Men. She eventually gets control over it very late into the movie. By this point, we the viewers waited too wait to see this happen. Honestly, if you turned off the movie prior to that point. I can't blame you because that's also a sign of terrible writing.
People wanted to see more actual stuff the Phoenix could do. These live action X-Men movies really don't do the character neither Jean Grey herself justice. It's kinda pathetic the second attempt ends up being much worst from the previous one. This X-Men movie felt like a massive waste of time.
It actually felt like a big filler movie you don't even need to watch. But hey it's there if you wanna watch it. Which should've been how they should've treated it. Instead, it's treated as the conclusion to the more recent prequel, new timeline X-Men movies. The first two X-Men movies in this line up were decent.
Something happened from X-Men: Apocalypse that carried over to this. In all honestly, the level of disappointment I actually felt from X-Men 3: The Last Stand to the original movies. There's no comparison, as disappointing that was in itself. We followed a poorly adaptation with a even worst adaptation.
Not only that, people waited for years to see Apocalypse in an live action X-Men movie. Clearly he wasn't done justice at all. Going into this X-Men movie, an second attempt at the famous Phoenix story arc. It's mind blowing, how truly bad this X-Men movie turned out to be.
I know I'm ranting hardcore on this X-Men movie. But it truly deserves every unpleasant thing everyone ever said about the movie. It deeply fails in every possible category imaginable. This movie is a huge turn off to X-Men and especially Marvel fans in general. This felt like a massive wasted opportunity or more directly an cash grab!!!
Yeah, you heard me an cash grab. "Hey they're doing the Phoenix again!!!" Do yourselves a favor don't watch this X-Men movie!!! I'm sure by now there's plenty of better adaptations of the Phoenix. There's slightly more on just Jean Grey herself. X-Men: Dark Phoenix's title should've been called and I quote.
"X-Men: The Never Ending Drama Fest", yes that's a more fitting title for this garbage. No one in any possible way looked good in this movie. The story itself is too all over the place with horrible pacing. Not only that, it's a huge insult when Magneto looks this bad. Overall, this movie isn't even worthy being called an X-Men movie.
Yes the X-Men doesn't do much that's worth noting. Unless you wanna talk about Beast wanted to kill Jean. He had feelings for Mystique, he wanted revenge. This was very out his character but hey they went with it. Hell just leaving Jean alone must've prevented some stuff from happening was the very message the movie was sending.
I also gotta mention, originally in X-Men 3: The Last Stand. When the "Phoenix" side took control, her eyes were black. It's more faithful with her eyes being almost like flames yellow. A notable improvement but that's about it. When the Phoenix takes control, some of her veins glows yellow too.
I'm honestly not sure how I felt about that aspect. Jean herself comes off like a nasty teenager. They played too much out of this drama. Rather than having the Phoenix do some epic stuff. Also it would've be awesome, Jean could've taken control much sooner too. Maybe this would've saved the movie who really knows or even cares anymore.
Look we all know it, this X-Men movie is dumpster fire. The flames are just high enough, you see em. Almost looking straight in Hell!!! Maybe that's where this movie belongs. Can you imagine someone used this X-Men movie as a torture method? The movie itself is easily one of the absolute worst Marvel movies I ever seen period!!!
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