So after leaving X-Men: Dark Phoenix tonight, the first
thing I said was 'I like it.'
Then I took a second to really think in what I’d just seen
and I realized- no. No I did not.
Let’s start by talking about what I liked. The
cinematography and special effects were excellent. I never had a moment where I
thought, 'well that looks awful.' I did laugh at the way the aliens ran at the
end, but that’s a lesser issue. Tye Sheridan as Scott Summers was the best
Scott I’ve seen so far. Emoting and getting the scene across in your face is
difficult when your eyes are covered, but I think Sheridan made good use of the
rest of his facial features and his body language to really sell the character
in each scene.
Now onto the longer list.
Dark Phoenix is a confused and cliché script trying to force
years of character development and world building into an hour and fifty
minutes- which is short by most movie standards, but to cry and cram so much
story into 110 minutes is like breathing oxygen in space. That’s something Jean
can do, by the way. Before she even takes in the Phoenix Force (called The
Force in the movie) Jean is able to survive in space without any oxygen tanks.
I think the writers were trying to establish her shield but it mostly came off
as an inconsistency in the narrative.
The first problem with the movie itself, though, is the
characters. Xavier is shown from the very beginning as being overcome with
hubris, and willing to sacrifice the people he’s meant to protect in order to
fulfill his own agenda. Now this would be fine--if it were Magneto. In
both the comic’s and original theater trilogy Erik Lehnsherr is established as
a terrorist willing to throw those loyal to him to the dogs so long as he
reaches his ultimate goal, while Xavier is shown to be the opposite, unwilling
to compromise those in his care in order to make humans accept mutants. In this
movie, however, Erik is content to hide away with the mutants he finds
regardless of the state of the world as Xavier blatantly puts his students and
loved ones in the way of danger in order to keep his position as America’s
Mutant Sweetheart.
On top of that, Mystique is also perfectly willing to
give up the fight for equality that in any other continuity she risked her own
life and took that of others so that mutants could stand above humans. Even in
this series of X-Men movies, she’d been shown to want equality just as much as
Charles had. Also, early in the movie she tells Xavier to change the team's
name to X-Women because ‘the women are always saving the men.’ Except, there
hadn’t been a single moment where a man from their team was in peril and either
Jean or Mystique stepped up and went to save them. There were several groans in
the theater at that one. That’s not the only line said without anything to
establish it or back it up, but we’ll get to that in a bit.
Honestly the characters and the plot were all over the
place. Raven wants to leave because she’s frustrated with Xavier putting the
others in danger, and decides ditching instead of trying to keep then safe is
the way to go. Xavier refuses to see where he made a mistake until two thirds
into the movie and even then it feels cheap, like when someone apologizes for
you being upset instead of apologizing for upsetting you. Jean spends the whole
movie going between crying and a God complex. Hank goes from a true pacifist to
murder hungry. Storm, Kurt, and Peter are underutilized and underplayed for the
majority of the film. Everyone else was forgettable.
Let’s talk about that, actually. The trailers set up this
mysterious woman with other worldly features as a major role. The movie does
not follow through. This woman is named Margaret, though I didn’t remember that
until I had to really think about it because she's only named once. In fact
the woman we see in the trailer isn’t even technically Margaret.
Margaret is a regular human with no backstory or character
establishment, who is shown having some kind of dinner party. All we really
learn about her is that she
·
Has friends
·
Is possibly married?
·
Mothers her dog like it’s her first baby and
she’s spending her first night away from it.
Seriously, the dog- Luna, which is a weird dog name- is
barking like a dog does and she looks at her husband(?) And he tells her
it’s probably a squirrel that the dog is barking at. The dog keeps barking and
Margaret says she’s just going to check on her real quick, which I’ve only ever
heard from concerned first time moms. Before that scene, these white lights
fell out of the sky, and Margaret goes towards the woods they fell into to
check on the dog. Again, weird but honestly I used to have a densely wooded
part of my backyard so I didn’t really question it. Regardless, Margaret sees these
grotesque creatures and before she can even scream, one kills and shapeshifts
into her.
The scene changes and the alien comes back to the dinner
party and kills the friends, then it goes back to X-Men. The next time we see 'Margaret'
is with other aliens also shapeshifted into (presumably dead) humans. They
speak in their native language and the main alien is called Vuk. They talk
about the Phoenix Force, which is inhabiting Jean at that point, and the fact
that they need the power to rebuild their world and bring their people back to
life.
That’s it. That is all we’re told. No one says what the
species is called, nor the planet. They don’t even name the power, actually.
They don’t explain why it can help them or what destroyed their home. No one
else even gets named. Also, this is the only time Vuk's name is mentioned and
just like Margaret I forgot it until I really thought about it.
A lot happens after that. Jean’s powers are growing stronger
and given she’s already had problems controlling her gift, the increase in
strength puts stress on her. The students are having a bon fire in celebration
and Jean is really thirsty. It’s never explained why. Then, out of no
where, the music an unnamed student (possibly Dazzler?) and the bon fire sends
Jean into a panic attack and her powers lash out, hurting Scott--and probably
others but no one talks about it so?????
Jean passes out from the power surge, and Xavier tries to
breach her mind to see what’s happening. He has to use Cerebro at almost full
power to enter Jean’s thoughts and he starts to get very worried, confusing and
concerning Hank and Raven. It turns out when Jean was young, Charles blocked
off some memories to help 'protect her' and those memories are coming back. He
tries to put in new blocks or wake Jean up but she fights him off and does some
damage. We actually only see him get a nosebleed and then pass out but in the
next scene he’s fine???
Anyway, Jean’s dad is alive, even though she’s been told he
died with her mother. Angry and confused she goes to see him, and is happy to
find him alive and well. She goes into the house and even though her dad is obviously
distressed and upset that she’s there, Jean is overjoyed. That is, until
she realizes there are tons of pictures, but none of her. Jean gets mad,
realizing her father gave her up and was afraid of her. Her anger increases and
the house starts to shake, her father begging Jean to stop. She says it’s not
her and goes outside.
The X-Men are there and there’s a struggle. The fights are
pretty cool honestly. Like I said, the effects in this movie were good.
The cops show up, for some reason, and Jean loses control under so much stress
and sends the cop cars flying, then she fights her own team. Mystique tries to
calm her down, but apparently being told she’s loved and things would be okay
is too much for Jean Grey because she sends Raven flying to her death.
The X-men have a funeral and Jean runs.
This sets up the rest of the movie as characters falling
flat and making choices that don’t suit their personalities.
Jean goes to Erik's compound and asks for help, but when
military show up she decides to kill them even though she just asked Erik how
to 'stop hurting people'. Erik saves the humans which is weird for him, but I
explained that away by saying he was protecting the mutants in his care. It
still doesn’t make sense for Magneto though. Erik makes Jean leave and she’s pissed,
but leaves anyway.
Hank blamed Charles for Raven's death--and honestly there’s
like eight different reasons why it is Xavier’s fault but instead of
owning up to it he just goes, 'I just buried my sister. Thanks for the guilt
trip wahhhhh'. Hank then goes to Erik, tells him Jean killed Raven, and they
decide to kill her. Two of Erik’s mutants come along but I have no clue who
they are because they’re not named.
Kids from the school ask Scott if Jean really killed Raven,
he says it wasn’t really Jean and that it was an accident. They all just
accept that with no fuss. Storm kind of argues that it was Jean and she
needs to be held accountable but Scott is just kind of like, nah, and
that’s the end of that.
An old man sits in a bar watching tv and drinking. The news
is discussing Jean and then the channels start to flip. The old man asks for
another and then Margaret/Vuk sits down and says 'Hello Jean'. I laughed at
that point thinking they got the wrong Jean but it turns out Jean is using her powers
to trick people into seeing and hearing an old man. It doesn’t work on Margaret
because they’re an alien. We still don’t know what kind of alien, but
whatever. Margaret says she can help Jean and wants to show her something. They
go to an apartment in New York and Margaret takes Jean into a room. Jean
scoffs, and then the room disintegrates into the scene in space when Jean took
in the Phoenix Force.
Margaret says Jean was destined for this. She says The Force
is a cosmic energy that both creates and destroys life. Basically, its God.
Jean has the power to recreate the world now and you'd think that’s the plot,
but its not.
The scene switches and Storm, Kurt, Scott, and Xavier go to
stop Hank and Erik from killing Jean. A huge fight between them breaks out in
the streets of New York City, which I’m surprised anyone lives in at this
point, and Erik gets to Jean. Their fight doesn’t equate to much. Erik tries to
stab her, she overpowers him, breaks the helmet and stabs him in a non-lethal
way. Xavier comes in and tries to talk to her, but she uses her power to force
his legs into motion and walk him to her. Xavier, in a last ditch effort, lets
Jean into his mind and shows her how much he loves her.
Jean stops trying to murder everyone and Margaret convinces
her to give up The Force with little effort. They hug, the power starts to seep
into Margaret and Xavier realizes the unnamed aliens are going to kill
everyone. He stops Jean from transferring all of the power, and Jean uses her
telekinesis to throw Margaret out the window. The military then swoops in and
captures all the mutants. Margaret is shown to be alive and follows.
This is the point where Xavier finally realizes he
messed up, which feels insincere but Erik and Hank buy into it, because this
movie has no consequences. They're on an armored train (??) and one soldier
tells Kurt his son was a big fan with so much disgust I felt personally
offended. The aliens choose that moment to attack and the mutants begging to be
let out so they can fight them off since the humans don’t stand a chance.
Obviously a ton of people die until the only soldier we'd care about at this
point releases the meta canceling handcuffs. There’s an epic fight as they all
try to keep Jean safe in her own compartment. She’s passed out again, by the
way.
Kurt apparently formed a deep, meaningful relationship with
unnamed soldier 6, so when he's killed Kurt freaks out and starts brutally
murdering the aliens. They’re aliens though, so even though they look human,
its totally okay that Kurt went insane.
Meanwhile Xavier and Scott made their way to Jean and are
trying to wake her up. Xavier apologizes for lying to her and says he was only
trying to save her from the pain. This is why I say him owning up to his
mistakes feels cheap. He keeps hold of this excuse that he was trying to do the
right thing and his intentions were good no matter what, despite all the pain
his choices caused. Anyway, Jean gets into his head, they talk, and she puts
all the mutants in protective bubbles while lifting and igniting the train,
killing all the aliens except Margaret.
They’re in a quarry now, because of course they are, and
it’s time for the big Jean vs Margaret fight. The fight consists of a force
hug, the power flowing into Margaret and killing her, Scott almost dying until
Jean stops trying to kill Margaret.
This is where the movie was ultimately ruined, in my
opinion. If this one moment had gone just mildly different, I would have said
Dark Phoenix was…okay.
In this scene, though, with Margaret's hand around Jean’s
throat and Jean holding her there, Margaret says 'your emotions make you weak.'
Jean responds with 'no' and flies them into space. 'My emotions make me
strong.' And then she kills both of them.
The movie ends with the school being renamed after Jean,
Hank taking over as headmaster, and Charles and Erik playing chess in France.
Now, why do I think that one scene totally killed the movie?
Because there was Absolutely. No. Setup.
We were shown throughout the movie that when Jean was under
duress her powers lashed out, sure, but no one had a moment where they told her
'your emotions are the problem.' If they had, that last scene, while contrite
and cliché, could have been a sort of payoff. Instead, Jean had been told she
could reshape the world for the better. She was told she was destined for
this power. The Force was set up to be the beginning and end of all things. If
that line had been 'You weren’t meant for this power' and then Jean, with
newfound confidence in her control (especially since Xavier spent so much time
saying she could do anything so long as she put her mind to it) saying 'Yes
I am, it’s my destiny. Remember?' it would have brought the whole movie full
circle and I would have at least been satisfied. Instead we got a Stat Wars
quote.
Basically, this movie is rushed, sloppy, and poorly
executed. The acting for some was good but for most, lazy. The script was a
mess, and the story didn’t know what it wanted to be and lost the plot on several
occasions. This movie was barely about the Phoenix Force. This was about Jean,
being confused and scared and too powerful for her own good, but even that was
done poorly.
Also--the Jean used the Phoenix Force in Apocalypse…so is it
a part of her like the old movies? Or is it an alien life form like the comics?
I’m not even sure the writers know at this point.
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