Dark Phoenix Review

Writer/director Simon Kinberg’s Dark Phoenix finishes the 20th Century Fox cinematic franchise of the X-Men, a 10-film saga that has spanned nearly 20 years. The X-Men films have always fluctuated in both ambition and complexity, infamous failures like 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand have been redeemed by incredible successes like 2017’s Logan. Unfortunately, Dark Phoenix finds a new low, missing the mark on a satisfying conclusion and merely showing how exhausted the franchise has become.

Dark Phoenix is based off the 1980’s series of X-Men comics of the same name, which are considered one of the most popular narratives within the X-Men universe. The story follows Jean Gray as she becomes the cruel and uncontrollable Dark Phoenix. During a dangerous mission in space with her fellow mutant teammates, Jean is hit with a mysterious force that awakens many of her inner demons and grants her incredible power. Progressively becoming more unstable and dangerous, Jean uncontrollably turns on the X-Men and threatens to destroy the world. Forcing the team to face their biggest challenge as they must fight one of their own.

The flaws of Dark Phoenix quickly become apparent, many of which reside in the films flat writing and blatant unoriginality. Terribly generic villains with a lack of motive are the catalyst to many of the films uninteresting conflicts. A creative artistic direction is never ventured despite the film insisting that its events take place during the now aesthetically trendy 90’s time period. Though the films biggest issue may be the clear lack of enthusiasm in the performances of many of the more notable actors. James McAvoy and Sophie Turner try their best with the poor script that was given, but others like Jennifer Lawrence and Michael Fassbender come off as unmotivated, lacking the energy that they so often have.

There are few salvageable aspects of Dark Phoenix, the action scenes are well choreographed and feature some wonderful CGI set pieces. While the score from legendary composer Hans Zimmer is often a standout, complementing and elevating many sequences that take place throughout the otherwise vastly uninteresting film.

Overall, Dark Phoenix never achieves a satisfying ending to the cinematic X-Men saga. It’s questionable as to why 20th Century Fox insisted that this film be the conclusion over the acclaimed Logan, a heartfelt and emotionally driven film that also happens to be the last in X-Men’s long and confusing timeline. However, the decision to conclude with Dark Phoenix has resulted in a less desired story that lacks engagement and fails to complete each character in a fitting way.

Poor execution, a complete lack of intriguing conflict and noticeably poor performances make Dark Phoenix an extremely disappointing end to the X-Men cinematic franchise.

Produced By: 20th Century Fox
Runtime: 114 minutes
Rating: PG-13