Dark Phoenix

...seriously, what the hell?

What even was that? I almost have no words to describe to you guys what I just saw. Dark Phoenix might be a contender for the all-time worst movie of 2019, and we’re only in early June. Now, I probably shouldn’t overdo it with the surprise; when the studio kept on pushing the release date of this film back in order to “get it right”, we all knew something was up. And know we know what; they had an unreleasable film on their hands. Even the final cut I just saw is something I wouldn’t release if I had the power. I would have just put it on Syfy, paid the actors and the studio for all their trouble, and called it a day.

I don’t even know where to begin. Well, I might as well start at the beginning. It’s the 90s and everybody from the last few movies looks like they haven’t aged a day…are we sure the actors themselves aren’t mutants? Anyway, the X-Men are now loved by the public and Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) is soaking all of the positive attention in, becoming a beacon of inspiration for the human world. One day, the X-Men go on a space mission to rescue some astronauts but end up coming into contact with an alien entity – yes, alien entity – known as the Phoenix, that embeds itself in Jean Grey (Sophie Turner). Fearing what could happen when she lets her new power loose, Jean runs away and is pursued by the X-Men, Magneto (who’s just here for no apparent reason other than it’s an X-Men movie and he has to be here), and an alien named Vuk (Jessica Chastain), who wants to control the Phoenix for her own purposes.

I should also probably point out just how weird it is that there are aliens in this movie. I mean, I know that’s how it happened in the comics, but I don’t remember any of the previous X-Men movies establishing that aliens existed in this series’ universe. It’d be fine if we were eased into it, like with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but nope. Apparently, there are just aliens floating about in the X-Men world (it’s probably a moot point complaining about this, seeing as this is the last Fox X-Men film before Marvel takes control and decides what to do with them).

This film is so darn boring! It clocks in at only 114 minutes, but it almost feels like 150. None of the actors in this film look even remotely interested to be here, with Jennifer Lawrence somehow looking even more bored than she did in X-Men: Apocalypse. Only Alexandria Shipp as Storm, Michael Fassbender as Magneto, and James McAvoy as Professor X register with me, the rest of them just look as if they’re going through the motions. Even Jessica Chastain, one of the most versatile actresses working today, has managed to have all of her ability sucked out by first-time writer/director Simon Kinberg. The only interesting storyline involves Charles becoming too complacent with the humans’ acceptance of the mutants and him being too confident in his judgement, but like everything else in this film, it’s only half-baked.

And this boredom extends beyond the acting and the story. The effects don’t look anywhere near finished, Hans Zimmer’s score just sounds like a collage of all his other previous work (his cues for Interstellar, the Dark Knight trilogy, Man of Steel, Dunkirk, and Sherlock Holmes are all present and accounted for), and the ending tries to pull a big emotional gut punch which I won’t spoil (though, do you guys even really care?) which it did not earn in any way, shape, or form. The whole film feels like nothing so much as a talented student becoming too cocky in their abilities then just half-assing it on a final term paper and completely messing it up.

I never thought I’d say this, but it’s worse than both X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. At least those films were entertainingly bad. The only entertainment to be found here are moments of laughable acting and scenes that are supposed to elicit shock or sadness, but instead had me and my friends busting our guts laughing.

Why…why am I even talking about this? You guys don’t care about Dark Phoenix. Nobody does! I kept forgetting that it was even on the horizon until I reminded myself. Heck, I even had to remind myself I saw it before sitting down to write this. I mean, I might as well be reviewing the chair I’m sitting in. I’m not kidding; discussing the chair given to me by my father would be far more interesting than talking about Dark Phoenix. It really is that bad.