X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019) - Movie Review

In the history of the Fox-helmed X-Men films, this particular entry is an important one. Mostly because, now that Disney owns the entertainment sector of Fox, this is the last film this franchise will produce until Feig and company integrate the mutants into the MCU proper. Even though Logan basically served as the thematic conclusion for this series, this is where it officially ends (save for New Mutants, but that project has been held back for so long now, it’s anyone’s guess if we’ll ever actually see it).

But there’s also something else that gives this film importance, namely writer and first-time director Simon Kinberg’s reason for making it. He tried before to bring the story of the all-powerful Phoenix to the big screen through his work on The Last Stand, but since most audiences didn’t care much for it, he wanted to try again and get it right this time. As I got into at the start of this year, I have a fondness for cinematic redemption stories like that, ones where creatives look at past mistakes and seek to rectify them; doubly so since it’s a filmmaker correcting their own mistake in this instance. However, no matter which way you slice it, the background importance placed on this just doesn’t translate into the finished product. Like… at all.

Let’s start with the acting: It’s lame across the board. This is the kind of lethargy that comes out of long-standing actors not wanting to finish things off with a bang, but just to finish in any fashion at all. Between that and several wonky character turns in Kinberg’s writing, the need for drama and pathos ends up being swallowed by how off everything here is. It certainly doesn’t help that, even though I walked away satisfied from Apocalypse, the new additions to the cast there (who take the front seat here) were among the plainest aspects of that production.

Dynamic-shaking narratives like this, ones that put emphasis on frictions between characters we already know, require investment in the characters themselves. And since this has become so far removed from the original series that it might as well exist in its own separate reality (not just from the originals but even from its own predecessors), that investment isn’t here.

As for attempting a do-over on the Dark Phoenix story… I honestly preferred it when Last Stand did it. Don’t get me wrong, there is quite a bit wrong with that film and there’s definitely reason to believe it could be done better, but in comparison to this, it at least makes sense. It took the story of Jean Grey at her most powerful, imbued with the Phoenix, next to a plot about the government trying to cure the mutant condition. It showed mutants at their most destructive and unhinged, next to a complicated issue about whether such power should even exist. It also built on the latent Wolverine character arc about personal power and restraint that added to the aforementioned plots to create something that, while flawed, felt like the pieces fit.

That’s not what we get here. All of the focus is put on the Dark Phoenix story, up to and including introducing aliens to the X-Men mythos, which may be nothing new for the X-Men on the printed page but is certainly new for the cinematic version. All that musing about personal power and rage and vengeance just falls flat because the film never does anything with it. The most we get is Professor X questioning his own actions towards Jean (which, again, were handled far better in Last Stand) and superficial divides being formed amongst the X-Men, ones that never generate more than a mild shrug in response.

However, even with all that said, there is still something here that draws me in somewhat. I’ve brought up this film’s connection to the rest of the X-Men series, but honestly, this is markedly different from what we’ve seen before. Those who have been keeping up with Outrage Twitter may be thinking that this referring to a certain line of dialogue that apparently turns the X-Men into SJWs, a claim made by people who have so marvellously missed the entire point of the series that it beggars belief.

No, I’m referring to something more encompassing than a single writing moment; it’s the entire film that has this effect. If I had to guess, I’d say that Kinberg was getting just as restless as the rest of us in regards to New Mutants seeing the light of day, because this isn’t an action-adventure fest like the other X-Men flicks. More than anything else, this feels like a horror movie.

Part of that is due to the visual aesthetic, which shows Kinberg and DOP Mauro Fiore bringing the ‘Dark’ part of the title to the forefront. This is a lot moodier and laced with shadows than the other films, an effect that actually turns out some positive results, like the introduction of the alien D’Bari race into the main plot.

From there, the action, while held back a fair bit by the M rating, is a lot grislier than the mainline X-Men films, from disintegration into clouds of blood and bone marrow to impalement to the most (theoretically) gruesome showing of Magneto’s powers to date.

There’s also Hans Zimmer’s compositional work, which follows in line with his efforts on films like Dunkirk in how it’s used to raise the tension. Hell, I’ll even admit that it did get under my skin on occasion, even with the unfortunate restraint.

That approach to the visuals feels like what this story should warrant, since the Dark Phoenix basically amounts to cosmic body horror where a person has to deal with having a near-literal God inside of them, and all the power that comes with it.

But when taken with everything else on offer here, it ends up feeling like a solid set-up for what is ultimately a bland and terror-devoid story. I can’t say that I hate this movie all that much, because I don’t see a whole lot to get angry about (as far as Fox-helmed superhero cinema, it doesn’t even scratch the surface of films like Fant4stic or Venom), but there is just as little to be happy about on the flipside.

As a send-off to the franchise that basically put in the groundwork for what modern superhero fiction has become, it’s underwhelming. As an X-Men movie in its own right, it makes for an interesting change in style but only hypothetically. But as an attempt to correct a past mistake, as an attempt by Simon Kinberg to do the Dark Phoenix story justice, it falls short of that very mistake. That, more than anything else, is what makes this film so bloody disappointing.