Why X-Men: Dark Phoenix sucked!

Released in 2019 X-Men Dark Phoenix was the last mutant film which was produced by Fox. Having begun 19 years earlier and being one of the reasons for the boom in superhero genre, the final instalment of the franchise was a let-down and a sad end for what was such a great franchise.

Adapting the famous Phoenix saga from the comics would be no easy feet and we saw this in X-Men: The Last Stand where many fans were annoyed with how the movie ended. 13 years later the studio tried again and this time failed even worse. From the lacklustre villains, a rushed plot and then the terrible end, there were few aspects of the movie which gave fans of the classic franchise a smile at the end.

Terrible Villains:

Throughout the X-Men franchise it would be hard to argue that the villains didn’t have a presence. Magneto (Ian McKellen) and William Stryker (Brian Cox) provided the original trilogy with complex and powerful villains, then the Sentinels and Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac) made the later movies feel threatening. Neither of these traits continued into Dark Phoenix.

Instead of going all in with Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) as the sole villain the movie introduced us to the D’Bari led by Margaret Smith whom let’s just say were less than spectacular. Their motives were confusing and there plan made little sense. What was explained was that the phoenix force destroyed the home planet of the D’Bari. This is why when the D’Bari wanted to invade Earth and use the phoenix force as a means to destroy all life there motives became confusing. Why would an alien race want to be imbued with the power that destroyed their planet?

What also was disappointing about the villains is there lack of presence. Margaret Smith’s character showed some signs of manipulation which would have been interesting if they kept leaning into this. However for the rest of the D’Bari they were simply goons for the X-Men to take apart.

Misuse of Characters:

When we look at the cast for the movie, the main favourites of the fans were Quicksilver (Evan Peters) and Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence). Hence when Mystique was killed off halfway through the movie and Quicksilver was crippled fans were left disappointed as their favourite characters were removed from the movie.

There wasn’t even a classic Quicksilver scene where he runs around listening to a classic song of the decade saving people’s lives. Not including a scene like this in the movie was a massive error as in the past 2 movies they were many fans favourite scenes. The studio just took what fans enjoyed and put him in a hospital.

Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique has always been questioned as some fans preferred the traditional Rebecca Romijn portrayal. However, making Mystique the leader of the X-Men did excite fans as it would be an interesting new dynamic for the character, a dynamic which made her wine and complain before eventually killing her off. A complete misuse of the potential of Mystique as a leader was one of the reasons fans switched off from the movie in the first act.

It was rushed:

To build drama and tension there needs to be a build-up. X-Men: Apocalypse rushed into its action, but at least it gave us some time to understand what was happening. Dark Phoenix completely missed the mark with its build. The pacing of the movie was terrible and everything escalated rapidly and without explanation. Magneto (Michael Fassbender) felt shoe horned in and only served to add another layer to the confusion. Not every X-Men movie needs the conflict between Charles (James McAvoy) and Eric.

Conflict between Beast (Nicholas Hoult) and Charles Xavier was also rushed and made little sense. Beast was angry at Charles for the death of Mystique, but other than that what purpose did Beast have for siding with Magneto. If their relationship was poor, then the death of a team member would have caused a split, but in previous movies their relationship was strong, arguably the strongest in the franchise.

Another aspect of the film that was rushed was the relationship between Cyclops (Tye Sheridan) and Jean Grey. We were just expected to know that they were together and loved each other dearly. There were no scenes where we felt a pure connection between the pair. Compare this to X-Men: The Last Stand and the connection between Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) was felt in the movie and even though the movie missed the mark as a whole, everyone watching had a feeling of sadness when Jean died because of how her teammates felt about her. In Dark Phoenix you wouldn’t have been blamed for not caring because we were not given any reason to care.

Moreover, even if the movie was rushed famous superhero action scenes could have saved it. However, all we got was small snippets of everyone’s power with little action sequences. As we previously said the D’Bari served as nothing more than fodder for the mutants to destroy.

Terrible ending:

After sitting through most of the movie, it would have been a relief when the movie ended. That being said the ending was still horrendous. My main annoyance with this was the fact the school was named after Jean Grey and not Mystique. This angered a lot of fans because it would have made a lot more sense for the leader of the X-Men to be on the name rather than the mutant that killed her.

Also, the movie spent the whole time making Jean split from her friends, which is why when she sacrificed her life for them nobody cared. If the ending was meant to be redemption for Jean then she didn’t get it. Many characters spend multiple movies finding their redemption which is why the ending fell flat just like the entire movie.

Verdict:

I think I made it clear of my disappointment towards X-Men: Dark Phoenix, but this mainly comes from the fact that they had the opportunity to make the movie successful. Recent X-Men movies were a long way short of the originals but they still were enjoyable. Instead Dark Phoenix ripped the sole from the franchise and threw it away.

If anyone is planning on re-watching this movie then just don’t! With the X-Men rights being with Disney now, we hope that mistakes made in the past won’t occur again. With Disney+ providing the opportunity for TV series, I think the origin of the X-Men would be more suited to that style, similar to the classic X-Men animated series, which was where the X-Men was at their best.