X-Men: Dark Phoenix film

[yogaflame]

That could be a blessing in disguise. Now they are brand new for the MCU.

Rogue and Gambit have both been in Fox-Men films, but it is easy to forget, they were so watered down.

[Divine Spark]

I just got back.

Honestly, I didn't think it was nearly as bad as the reviews. The problem is it was just kind of...there.

Yeah, the issue is that it doesn’t know how to pace itself. It’s just rushing to get from one scene to the next without letting the audience breathe and make important moments feel like they matter.

[Theleviathan]

I don’t think the story is unfocused but rushed and short.



Let me debunk the notion that I “love” or “personally like” this the movie. Here is my review from a few days ago.



So I am one of the people calling this “meh”.

I understand you dislike Kinberg but it’s making you a bit too combative. I never even said that Kinberg wasn’t at fault so you are making a serious strawman.

Then you should back off all the scapegoating and explaining. All of your posts are tinged with "it would have bern good if...."

This was broken from the start.

[Cerridwen]

Those aliens could've possessed the Hellfire Club with Jessica as Emma Frost. She's already blonde anyway.

[jignat]

Congratulations Simon Kinberg. You made the second worst X-men film of all time!


This film is like trying to eat ice cream while on novocaine. You cant feel anything!



Pros:

Acting from McAvoy/Fass even Turner was solid.

Score was decent.

The space shuttle rescue had good visuals end Train sequence had good fights esp Nightcrawler



Cons:

J Law phoning it in even worse than Apoc

Chastains character is so underwritten and is so flat. IF youre a comics fan, the revelation of who she is a kind of wtf. Clearly, Kinberg was trying to superficially make a character that resembles Emma Frost and has Masterminds powers among others.

A big event occurs at 45 minutes in and has NO EMOTION! I was like, “that happened” Lets buy groceries after" Even X3 did it better lol


Quicksilver is barely used. He doesn’t have a sequence and a big opportunity to clearly define his relationship with you know who (which has been teased in the 2 previous films) is not done! What a waste!


Storm makes ice cubes and generates lightning. If she did anything else noteworthy , I missed it.


While Cyclops is not carelessly thrown away like in X3, he only makes 5% of an improvement over his X3 role.

2 characters are against Jean after the pivotal moment yet easily change their minds with little reason.


How some shots are framed /composed , edited are so bland. You can tell a novice director helmed this.


This film had the worst mute henchmen of all the XCU. After one dies, Magnus screams one’s name, you know for the audience. Their action is lame. Riptide ,Deathstrike, and Azazel were mute but had cool action.



Overall: 5/10
Let the MCU heal you , my children

[U.N. Owen]

If I had my way, Selene would have been the big bad while Vuk in name only (VINO) would have been the woman behind the curtain, manipulating Selene so she could get to the Phoenix to use it to rebuild her world.

Then again, that game of cat and mouse would take too much time.

[Sam Robards, Comic Fan]

I saw the film yesterday, and I liked it. It wasn't the tire-fire that some people say it is, but it's by no means the best the franchise has to offer. It's far better than X3 and Origins, and I enjoyed it more than First Class, which I consider the best of the bad X-Movies. Not sure where I'd place it in relation to the good ones: I'll need time and an eventual rewatch to gauge that.

In terms of the good, I thought the actors put in good performances, which is something you usually have to be wary of in directorial deputs. Sophie Turner really carried the movie in my eyes: she got to show a far wider range of emotions than Famke did back in the day and did so effectively. There were also some cool set pieces (I loved Jean's at the end), and I liked Jean and Scott together. They weren't the most established on-screen romance, but I thought the actors sold it well enough. Also, there was some really nice framing and a different style of shooting than we're used to with these movies, and I thought it was really effective.

As for the stuff that didn't work, the big sore thumb is Jessica Chastain and her cadre. It's not that the idea behind them was bad: it's just that they don't have nearly enough to work with. They, and the PF itself, need a bit more fleshing out. I also wish Storm had more to her, but the brisk pacing of the movie kinda necessitated her going by the wayside; however, she did have some awesome action beats. Going along those lines, the movie as a whole needed more room to breathe: it's lacking in connective tissue, and it kinda gives it a haphazard feeling at times. I get why it goes from A to B, but there were a couple times I didn't get why the characters knew to go from A to B.

Overall, the movie needs a director's cut (about 15-20 extra minutes would do the trick), but I won't be heartbroken if it doesn't get one.

Some spoilery notes:
spoilers:

--Mystique's death was surprisingly bloody for PG-13. I was fine with it, just surprised that they got away with that level of gore in the rating. --Jean going ape on the D'Bari at the end was awesome. I mean, she gets impaled from behind and just goes, "Nope." I just wish her and Chastain coulda had a bit of a physical smackdown prior to the Phoenix-splosion --I think Cyclops's "You always come back to me" moment was used too soon. If you save it until the end right before Jean sacrifices herself, I think it works much better. --I like Cyke's f-bomb, but I don't think it was given the emphasis it needed. It works, but it jumps right off him and doesn't give it time to hit you. --Cyclops got a ricochet beam knockout! I freaking loved that, and his beams in general were the best I think they've ever been portrayed. When you get hit, you get your ass knocked down. I also loved the custom optic cannon they had on the jet.

end of spoilers

[Divine Spark]

Then you should back off all the scapegoating and explaining. All of your posts are tinged with "it would have bern good if...."

This was broken from the start.

Dude, all I said was that it was originally a two parter. I did not say that would have made it good.

[loke13]

so shouldn't they have renamed the school for Raven instead of her murderer?

[Divine Spark]

so shouldn't they have renamed the school for Raven instead of her murderer?

To be fair, she her behavior was effected by a cosmic entity when she did that. But the scenes making it more explicit(which you can find in the trailers) were cut.

[numberthirty]

so shouldn't they have renamed the school for Raven instead of her murderer?

To be fair, she her behavior was effected by a cosmic entity when she did that. But the scenes making it more explicit(which you can find in the trailers) were cut.

That doesn't really change the fact that Raven was a member of the initial team of X-Men as well as a hero those who later wound up becoming X-Men. Never mind that Raven died trying to help Jean.

Makes almost zero sense to name the school after the person she was trying to help and not Raven.

[PsychoEFrost]

That doesn't really change the fact that Raven was a member of the initial team of X-Men as well as a hero those who later wound up becoming X-Men. Never mind that Raven died trying to help Jean.

Makes almost zero sense to name the school after the person she was trying to help and not Raven.

No kidding. That just feels forced.

[Stormrocks]

*

No kidding. That just feels forced.

It was absolutely forced. Why name it after a hero turned criminal?

spoilers:

Jean didn't just kill Raven. She killed the cops at her father's house. She killed some of the army people at Magneto's compound. If there were any of the guards left alive on the train, she killed them too when she protected her family.

end of spoilers

Not to mention her actions are the biggest black mark against the X-Men since their rise to Fame. You'd want the public to move past Jean and her actions, not associate the school with following in her image as if she's a shining example of what happens to kids that go to this school.

Overall, I found the move flat and boring. Even the end fight was completely forgettable.

Someone should tell Kinberg that if Dark Phoenix is the villain of the movie, then let Dark Phoenix be the villain of the movie! Jessica Chastain's Vuk was completely wasted and not needed for the story. spoilers:

It was Vuk with the destroy the world plot; he was merely using Jean as the tool to do it.

end of spoilers That undercuts all the emotional impact of Jean going bad.

In the comics this was clear. Yes, Jason and Emma got inside Jean's head and manipulated the Phoenix, but she eventually broke free from their machinations. When she did, it wasn't a good thing. Phoenix was going to burn everything down. That why Jean reasserting herself and choosing suicide was so impactful. spoilers:

Having Jean be the victim of first Charles repressing her memories and then Vuk manipulating her completely negates any accountability for her own actions.

end of spoilers

Oh and Beast sucks. I get he loved Raven but come on!

[AHRNIHAL]

No kidding. That just feels forced.

But it sounds cool.lol

[PsychoEFrost]

Read a review of the movie, and it used one of my favorite Statler and Waldorf jokes:

Statler: It was so bad, half the audience walked out!
Waldorf: Only half? Not bad.
Statler: It was an in-flight movie!