Dark Phoenix is ​​not an epic conclusion of X-Men, but it's a pretty good teen movie.

It can be argued that the greatest shockwave in Marvel's recent movies and series was not a comical villainous cliche, but a click of the pen of Disney's CEO, Bob Iger. One by one, we witnessed the spinoffs of last year's Disney's Fox acquisition, primarily in the form of the Netflix series, which allows Disney to move at full speed (Willie boat) with his own movies and streaming service. This week, we can say that the conclusion of the last X-Men film series ends.

Dark Phoenix sees the carpet get out of the incarnation of the series, which started in 2011 X-Men: First class and became an overwhelming mess in 2016 X-Men: Apocalypse. This latest entry wrapped up the arc of an apparent trilogy, but the film once again this week is a disappointment for a surprising reason. Dark Phoenix begins with a glimmer of hope that this central cast could go to an interesting place if he were given one more chance. Much of the film comes as an incredible and autonomous graphic novel, with legitimate surprises, a convincing intra-X conflict and a closer focus on the relationships that the last movie has lost sight of.

If you are the kind of fan of the series to whom your wind can be knocked out by an ugly end and a carefully packed bow, Dark PhoenixThe best pieces may not be good enough. But up to this annoying conclusion, the film does its best to redeem half of X-Men on which Hugh Jackman or Sir Patrick Stewart never relied – and the result is a pleasant surprise in an ecosystem overloaded with superheroes.

X-Women to the rescue

Dark PhoenixThe best content revolves around a trio of badass leads: Jean Gray (Sophie Turner, Game of thrones), Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence, Academy Award Winner), and a mysterious newcomer (Academy Award winner Jessica Chastain). I can cite an example of dialogue and extremely serious speech by each of the actors listed, which, for a series as popular as X-Men, is equivalent to shooting four below average on a single hole in a golf course.

Turner, in particular, intervenes to juggle the traumas of his childhood, his anger and endearing vulnerability, while giving meaning to his complicated past. The film begins with Jean, who reminds us of the moment of childhood when his life was turned upside down. A certain Dr. Charles Xavier (James McAvoy, Glass) is interested in his apparent mutant gifts.

The timeline then continues rapidly until 1992, when seven known heroes (Jean Gray, Mystic, Cyclops, Storm, Nightcrawler, Beast and Quicksilver) embarked on space to save the skin. This targeted action sequence sees each hero coming out of a superpower with incredible VFX work, especially the ripples of smoke left behind by Nightcrawler in his wake, while the inevitable "something that is not going away not "play with the logic of each character. involved.

John suffers the most intense consequences of this mission, but we also witness clashes among other characters, all of whom face their own interpretations of what life as an American mutant should mean. For some actors, the solution is to be only children – and so we get a welcome comic relief, as well as a few sequences that balance the melodrama of adolescence with the issue of superheroes. . The result reminded me of my favorite parts in Spider-Man reunion, in which the young characters have to face the usual trope of the transition to the age of the new powers vis-a-vis the old insecurities – although Dark Phoenix spreads this responsibility over more characters and, as a result, sometimes looks more like Dawson.

McAvoy also does well to describe Xavier's sometimes biased priorities while making his character friendly and respectable – a fact that fuels a particularly interesting confrontation between his character and Lawrence. (His reminder that "women always save men here" may seem derisory, but in the heat of the film, this line feeds an impressive confrontation of X-Men leadership.)

It's a bird (uh, a phoenix), it's a train

But the best relationship in Dark Phoenix is between Xavier and Jean, thanks to the way their similar mental reading powers meet at dramatic moments. This is all the more impressive because, in the course of some of their most intense conversations, the actors do not look at each other, but rather that their conversations are projected against the wall of image-reading effects. of synthesis. The resulting memory of haphazard and jagged memories, whistling and blurred on a movie screen, could have been a dizzying, even odious, way of cutting corners. Instead of, Dark PhoenixS's effects team provides consistent visual themes to sell these vignettes.

Even better, the film's battle sequences soften the usual paradigm of the open sky, zillions of lasers, with which Marvel Cinematic Universe's films have defeated us for the last five years or so. Focused camera angles stick quite a long time with one point of impact before moving on to the next hero or conflict. The characters face each other in an intelligent way, usually with the strength or weakness of each mutant associated with an ally or enemy. And the first events clearly show that the outcome of a fight is not predictable, giving more weight and tension to each showdown.

A movie end train sequence is particularly good at selling the hierarchy of forces of each mutant. The weaker and stronger characters face each other in a rational way without diluting the tension of what will follow – and this fact is reflected by a solid variety of camera angles in the car and above train, as well as major actions. moments to sell each.

In the end, none of this is of visual importance if we do not care about John, a superhero who spends much of his time stripping layers of deception and tragedy. She and Mystic are the focal points, with each major male character failing the Bechdel test. The result is both a refreshing gadget and a masterpiece of execution. These two characters are pushing the boundaries of what the X-Men organization should be and they both suffer – and carry nobly – big rips along the way, offering viewers the opportunity to associate our own metaphors of the coming of age. (I would say it's done well enough to eventually outperform the best similar things Captain Marvel.)

Without spoiling everything, however, I will simply say that this specific eulogy almost crumbles at the end of the film. Jean, Xavier and some other characters end up Dark Phoenix with the kind of "Nope, there is no next action", a cleanliness that spits in the face of survival and tragedy – a point that would have been wonderful to leave one more film in this X-Men universe. Alas. If it were a graphic novel, I would rip the last pages and feel good about having the experience as a whole, and I strongly encourage anyone who loves this X-Men series fork to do the same, whether in the theater or a possible home viewing experience in a few months.