Dark Phoenix Review – IGN

By Jim Vejvoda

Although some have not feared for the train, given its low-gloss trailers, Dark Phoenix is ​​putting an end to the long X-Men franchise in a haphazard and confusing way. The film is slightly better than the previous story of the Phoenix saga, X-Men: the last fight, and it is certainly better than X-Men: Apocalypse, excessive and excessive, but Dark Phoenix remains a disappointing final for this almost 20 years. years, while Disney becomes the owner of Fox's X-Men characters. (Yes, let's recognize that The New Mutants is still the latest movie produced by Fox and linked to X that will be released next year.)

In the film of Jean Gray, Dark Phoenix struggles to give John a real personality or identity outside his super powers. The events of Revelation (which seemed to me less dramatic than those of Daniel Krupa, critic of IGN,) which seemed to trigger the awakening of his powers to the Phoenix are simply ignored in favor of a celestial force that lives there during a rescue mission in space. Although this may be more accurate than what happened in The Last Stand and Revelation, his new divine powers only serve McGuffin to the villains and is an excuse for heroes to behave in a melodramatic fashion. The Phoenix force itself is left unexplored and fuzzily defined, essentially the equivalent in the outer space of a killer shark on the lookout or a demon looking for a soul to possess.

Sophie Turner plays the three shades of gray that Jean has given here – scared, sobbing and bubbling – as best as she can, but the scenario flames through her tragic bow, never really finding him a personality to truly leave a audience. communicate with John emotionally. The story goes that John was trying to find his agency among two older mentors – Charles Xavier of James McAvoy and the sinister extraterrestrial Jessica Chastain – seeking to control it, but his journey is rushed and his characters schematically sketched. The tragedy of John's critical situation never gets as much weight as she should and therefore has no damage, in human lives or in relationships, that she and her fellow X-Men suffer from.

Jennifer Lawrence's mysterious Steely Mystic has its causal function to play in this story, a story that puts Nicholas Hoult's Beast of Vengeance in motion while his loyalty is put to the test. Magneto, tired of the whole world, of Michael Fassbender apparently found his corner of the world to live in peace before plunging into the fray, where he had a few moments of badass to strut and even that his vision of the world switches everything throughout the film. But the three characters, perhaps like the franchise itself, are quite clear and want to go ahead.

And the character with whom they are the most frustrated is undoubtedly the endless pontificant Xavier who, after John, has the most central arc in history. Professor X's pride is the Achilles' heel of this young incarnation, and Dark Phoenix sees him quite demonized for his past actions (but largely for the same reasons as those previously explored in The Last Stand). Yet James McAvoy sells all of this with painful sincerity, as Xavier has a dilemma that he himself has created. Charles Xavier lives in a proverbial scenario "Pay attention to what you want" because the X-Men are now hailed, while heroes and mutants are less feared and hated than ever – until John gets turns to the dark side and publicly reveals his anger. at Xavier's place.

The first director, Simon Kinberg, who also wrote the screenplay (and co-wrote The Last Stand), creates decent decors of action throughout his life, especially a decisive battle aboard a train. good part of the movie. Indeed, the first half of the film is the best and most consistent. But the high-profile cover of the film – apparently to differentiate it from another recent superhero movie (almost certainly Captain Marvel) – clearly affected the second half of Dark Phoenix, as the pace became more erratic and the logic behind some moments of plot and characters was lost.

One of the biggest missed opportunities of the film is its treatment of the wicked. An extraterrestrial race – which I will leave nameless for the pleasure of the spoilers – eager to equip itself with a cosmic weapon is not a new idea (as recently described Captain Marvel), but Dark Phoenix never gives any dimension to the character of Chastain or his acolytes or personality. As with Oscar Isaac in Apocalypse, Dark Phoenix engages a talented actor in a predefined role, Chastain offering flawless performance as a super-dimensional villain. (And you'll have a hard time remembering who Chastain has played since his character's name is spoken maybe once in the entire movie.)

The film simply discards who and what are these extraterrestrials – indeed, humans have had first contact with extraterrestrials and no one mentions it! – and it never explores them beyond being the Other that one has to fear, which is a really strange and negative message to send to an X-Men movie.