When Michael Fassebender’s Erik “Magneto” Lehnsherr said, “You’re always sorry and there’s always a speech. But nobody cares anymore,” to his old friend Charles “Professor X” Xavier (James McAvoy), I know that line was the truth about how I feel about this franchise. I never was a fan of the entire Fox’ X-Men franchise, but this Dark Phoenix has its ups and its downs that I don’t really care anymore.
The 19 years journey, since X-Men released on 2000, the idea of superhero saga or simply, a franchise was not even there. Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool has the perfect line to describe the whole mess, “Which one? Stewart or McAvoy? The timeline is confusing.” The whole X-Men franchise has a really mess-up timeline, not to mention the also mess-up continuity. All 12 movies. including two Deadpool spin-offs, some were good, some were awful, and some movies were fallen in between so you don’t want to care about. I feel that Dark Phoenix were more like a sweet reunion of the casts, since The whole characters (except Logan, of course) from the past X-Men: First Class, X-Men: Days of Future Past and X-Men: Apocalypse were reprising their roles, rather than a remarkable finale to 19 years journey of X-Men before Disney and Marvel take over and restart their own X-Men franchise.
Dark Phoenix sets in 1992, 8 years before the first event on X-Men (2000). In order to make the timeline of this whole franchise becomes more confusing, they cast Mr. McAvoy as Professor X and Mr. Fassbender as Magneto instead of Mr. Stewart and Mr. McKellen, despite of Magneto should be about 60 years old since he’s a Holocaust survivor. This time, the X-Men, under the lead of Miss Lawrence’s Mystique and Mr. Hoult’s Beast, is sent to save NASA’s lost contacted spaceship. The reason behind is what-so-called “the solar flares”, and that flares were somehow absorbed by the psychic Jean Grey (Sophie Turner). Jean becomes stronger than she was before, and her power becomes more destructive under her insecurity. Estranged by both X-Men and Magneto, Jean encounters Vuk (Jessica Chastain), an extraterrestrial being that interested in Jean’s “solar flares” in order to create her own colony on earth. Turns out, that “solar flares” were actually a powerful cosmic energy that… I don’t know what that energy could do, but I watched an explanation that cosmic energy was the same energy that happened to The Fantastic Four and made them, ehem, having super abilities.
As a finale, Dark Phoenix has some odd moments and failed in almost every single aspect. The ensemble casts were acting good, but their good acting were ruined by the all-messed-up screenplay. The screenplay was emotionless, going nowhere, and trashy. It made them looks like they don’t own the characters and they didn’t bond with one another. I supposed that Director Kinberg was the one to blame for the weak and emotionless screenplay, since he was the one who both directing and writing it. The action sequences were spectacular-looking, but the screenplay made it unnecessary to battle one mutant to another while they also failed to make a convincing villain through Jessica Chastain’s stiff blond look. Miss Chastain’s Vuk is completely boring, unnecessary, and her character made no significance whether she was there or not. The battle against good-turned-evil Phoenix would absolutely made a far more interesting story than brought up a villain that completely did nothing to make this movie worked.
The story of Dark Phoenix saga has been actually adapted on X-Men: The Last Stand, and Famke Janssen surely made a more scarier and terrorizing Phoenix than Sophie Turner did on this movie. I don’t blame Miss Turner for this. Her role has been decreasing into minor role on the last X-Men: Apocalypse, so when she needs to grab the whole emotion of this movie, her character development was clearly missing. Miss Turner did a great job in developing the reason on why Jean was so insecure about herself, but her line was never powerful enough to show the emotion behind the character. Tye Sheridan, who plays Jean’s love interest Scott “Cyclops” Summer, did nothing to create more understandable chemistry between him and Miss Turner’s Jean.
The screenplay did also failed in connecting the entire puzzle of this movie. For example, the story didn’t explain on how great the cosmic energy would impact and what that cosmic energy can do. They chose to show the dark side of that energy, made Jean Grey looks like a tantrum young girl who wants to destroy every single thing in front of her. Moreover, Magneto is now leading a colony of mutant on their own land, but they didn’t explain how, and why, the government is finally giving them rights to live on that land.
Dark Phoenix was built on a rich history of X-Men, and it should serve the satisfying ending to this 19-years-old movie franchise. Director Kinberg, however, did grabbing all elements from all X-Men movies and showing it to the audiences who already confused with this franchise’s timeline. The casts did all things they could to save the emotion of this movie, but they never got the right line to show it. Probably this moment were all lost in the previous installments, and that this franchise should have ended several movies ago.
Directed by: Simon Kinberg | Produced by: Simon Kinberg, Hutch Parker, Lauren Shuler-Donner | Screenplay by: Simon Kinberg | Starring: Sophie Turner, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan, Koby Smit-McPhee, Alexandra Shipp, Jessica Chastain | Music by: Hans Zimmer | Cinematography: Mauro Fiore | Edited by: Lee Smith | Production Companies: 20th Century Fox, The Donners’ Company, Marvel Entertainment, TSG Entertainment | Distributed by: Walt Disney Studio Motion Pictures | Official Website
3.9/10
The Lady in Pink 