[Film] X-Men: Dark Phoenix - Jun 07 2019

[hepcat]

Oof...oh well, at least it doesn't appear to be 2015 Fantastic Four bad.

...yeah, that's small comfort, I know.

[Isgrimnur]

For reference:

[hepcat]

I sat through FF and made it out the other side. But I still can't sleep well at nights.

[Isgrimnur]

I sat through FF and made it out the other side. But I still can't sleep well at nights.

Pixy Stix powder isn't an approved CPAP additive.

[hepcat]

It was like watching a superhero movie made by a group of people who were ashamed they were making a superhero movie.

[hepcat]

Okay, saw it after work. I have to agree with the reviews, it’s just not very good. It’s only slightly better than Last Stand, but not by much.

I still don’t think Turner is a terribly good actress. And my opinion was only reinforced seeing her on screen with people who are. McAvoy, Fassbender, Lawrence, Holt...they’re all much better and carry the bulk of the movie.

The main problem for me though was that the movie was just...well..boring. There was a lot of mayhem, but it just felt so uninspired and by the numbers. Even the enemies were essentially just idiots who liked to run directly into everyone’s fists or bullets. And they did so for some master plan that was never really explained well.

However, the film did have one saving grace

Spoiler:

My favorite X-Men entry has always been X-Men: United. And that was almost entirely because of Alan Cummings pitch perfect portrayal of Nightcrawler. Jackman always gets cited as one of, if not the best casting choices for the franchise; and I agree he’s great. But Cummings I felt was just as strong a choice. Not just because he captured the look, it because he captured the soul of the character. In this reboot franchise, Smit-McPhee has been okay, but just didn’t have that same heart. However, in Dark Phoenix there’s a 2 or 3 minute rampage he goes on after he witnesses another human death at the hands of the aliens...and it’s John Wick level badassery. But it felt true to the character because Kurt Wagner is a spiritual person in the comics who is forever altruistic and just plain good. The scene I’m referring to seems to be missing a little bit of the build up to his breaking point, but McPhee still makes it feel well earned. Sadly, I doubt we’ll see another X-Men film...or at least one with these actors. It’s just too bad his moment came so late on the series.

Anyway, no after credits. So leave when the credits start if you go.

[Pyperkub]

Bombing?

Then came the box-office results which sunk far below expectations, the film bombing with $33 million haul States-side which is a full $20 million below the previous franchise low opener of 2013’s “The Wolverine” with $53 million. International fared a bit better with a further $107 million, most from China.

Now though analysts and finance experts are studying the results and from the looks of it the film is on track to lose an estimated $100-120 million for Disney-Fox. At present the film is projected to finish its global box-office haul at anywhere from $285-325 million. With a negative cost of $350+ million from production, reshoots and P&A, the film needed to make a lot more.

“Dark Phoenix” was originally planned to be two movies but the studio changed its mind during late pre-production which lead to re-writes. Fingers are now being pointed as to who is to blame with much of it being levelled at Fox’s remaining staffers and its marketing team.

[rittchard]

First things first. I'm a huge X-Men fan, I've been reading the comics for close to 40 years now. Phoenix is one of my all-time favorite characters, if not my absolute favorite. I've read the original Dark Phoenix "Saga" many many times, and all the retreads and rebirths and re-imaginings of it, down to the most recent ones a year or two ago. In all honesty, I was actually a fan of The Last Stand, which I believe was universally loathed. And likewise, I thought this movie was decent, not spectacular, but I didn't have very high hopes anyway. Just being able to see X-Men on screen is always a treat for me. There are some fun action sequences, and we get to see Magneto and Storm kind of cut loose in ways they haven't been allowed to before. Nightcrawler is used much more effectively as well, and even Prof X gets in on the action. I'm not a big Sophie Turner fan, but she does a decent job with the limited material she is given. I keep trying to think if there is a different young actress that could have made more from this, and honestly my first choice would have been Jennifer Lawrence lol. The other one that comes to mind is Shailene Woodley. Anyway, I love the rest of the cast members, though I would have liked to see a bit more of the ever fantastic Quicksilver.

Frankly I don't understand why it got such negative press, it really felt like people had made up their minds before it even started. I already saw news of it being called a flop on Friday night, I mean come on, give it a chance. This goes to that whole movie momentum factor thing I don't quite understand, which I could prob discuss ad infinitum. It seems like a lot of movies these days are pre-destined to fail, where a movie of similar quality is built up and then does great. Obviously there are exceptions like Endgame which was phenomenal and really deserved all the praise it got. But in the world of Superhero movies, it's pretty hit or miss whether which treatment you are going to get. Take Aquaman for example, it got a lot of decent press and decent momentum and was ultimately considered a box office success, but frankly I could just as easily have seen it become a massive flop if that's what the "momentum" decided in advance. IMHO it was all in all a pretty crap written movie, but I enjoyed it enough that I could go either way in terms of a review or recommendation. I don't mind that it did well, but I also don't think it was a better movie than Dark Phoenix.

So anyway, back to the movie. First off I don't know who greenlit this, but it just seemed like a bad idea from the getgo. Did we really need to retread this again when it was already done not that long ago? I know people love to trash The Last Stand, but that alone doesn't seem to warrant this "remake." The biggest problem, and anyone who actually read the comics would know this, is that it is not a simple story that can be told in a single movie format. It is a story that needs to develop over time and breathe and evolve to have the right impact, ideally in a full series but at minimum probably a 3 movie story arc. Instead, they yet again rush us through the entire evolution of Jean Grey to Phoenix to Dark Phoenix in such short order it really leaves you kind of cold. In the comics, Jean sacrifices and dies and eventually comes back as Phoenix, and all that in itself would probably make for at least one solid movie. It's as Phoenix that the character gets a ton of development as she adjusts to her new powers, and it's a great story by itself. Act 2 is the slow insidious corruption phase, where she gets seduced to the dark side by Mastermind and joins the Hellfire Club, and again that story deserves its own movie, even if it was a story arc within a larger movie. And finally the conversion to Dark Phoenix and all the drama that unfolds then has a much more weighted foundation to conclude an epic story. Oops sorry I just read that last post and saw it was originally intended as two movies, which is essentially what I was arguing about. I could see it still being a rush job but certainly much much better with two movies. You need and deserve at least one movie to celebrate and fall in love with the Phoenix character.

And of course the timing could not have been much worse, coming a month after perhaps the greatest superhero story arc conclusion of all time. Super-team fatigue plus the inevitable comparisons are just not possible to avoid so soon.

It was really yet another missed opportunity, but I think TPTB decided it was not worth the investment, particularly given the impending move to Disney (btw there's a scene in the movie where special unit army/cop-types are fighting with our guys, and they are wearing uniforms indicating they are from the Mutant Control Unit, aka MCU. Their MCU tags are on full display and I don't know if it was intended to be funny or ironic or just sad). Here's hoping the MCU guys can bring us a new era of X-Men characters and stories, and if they do decide to do a Phoenix story, hope they do it justice.

[Kasey Chang]

Watched it over the weekend, not bad.