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

X-Men: Dark Phoenix is written and directed by Simon Kinberg who makes his directorial debut with this film after writing and producing several X-Men movies beginning with the Last Stand in 2006 and like that film this one seeks to tell the story of Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) and her interactions with the Phoenix force and how that affects the other X-Men (James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan, Evan Peters, Alexandra Shipp and Kodi-Smit McFee) and the mysterious Alien Vux (Jessica Chastain) as well as Magneto (Michael Fassbender.)

I held out hope for Dark Phoenix much like Charles Xavier always has his continuing search for Hope as I love and adore this X-Men franchise and like Star Wars, Dragon Ball, James Bond and the Avengers though that last one is to a much lesser extent I don’t want to walk out of an X-Men movie and say its bad as I absolutely love the first 3 movies in this series directed by Bryan Singer but was my search for hope in vain or was I to be the bearer of bad news.

Well dear readers it is with a heavy heart (a very heavy heart even) that I must say that this movie is not good, its not awful but it just isn’t very good at all.

Firstly Mr Kinberg had no business directing this movie one little bit, this was his first movie in that captains chair, his first time in that saddle and every instinct of that first time go is on show, he doesn’t know when to let scenes breath, how to pace a story in terms of plot moments, character interactions and action scenes which is a delicate balance in the best of circumstances as well as how to direct visual effects and action scenes and how to properly edit them and he had the fucking Academy Award winning editor of Dunkirk for Pete’s sake.

And as a result of all of this you just sit there in your cinema seat (and I saw it in the same theatre I saw Singer’s first X-Men movie in 2000) getting bored with it all after a while as you just see all of these mistakes and you say to yourself “Can someone please come in and take over this project, this is embarrassing” and even veteran directors like Singer, Matthew Vaughn who directed First Class in 2011 and James Mangold who made the Wolverine and Logan it can take time for them to get use to directing this huge size movie with mega dollarydoos on the line and requiring visual effects that won’t exist for months and Kinberg just fumbles his way through all of it and you just feel embarrassed after it ends.

As for the performances again like with Godzilla you have a great cast at your disposal and they are for the most part just going through the motions this time around, Ms Lawrence in particular just shows up, does her scenes, takes her cheque and goes to hopefully do something more worthy of her immense talent, Mr Fassbender just shows up and does his scenes while trying to bring something new to Magneto while the young cast of Ms Shipp, Mr Smit-McPhee, Mr Sheridan and Ms Turner again do their best with what they have but at times struggle.

Ms Turner in particular really struggles to transition to leading lady this time around and while she is said to have done great work on Game of Thrones (I haven’t watched that series so I wouldn’t know I’m afraid) she comes across as someone who desperately needs the guiding hand of a veteran director to get that type of performance out of her but Jessica Chastain is TERRIBLE in this, her character is of so little consequence to this story that you could write her out completely and the movie would frankly be better for it because at least then you could give your main cast more to work with but no we get this microwaved villain with a nothing plot that goes nowhere played by an actress who just stares off into fucking space.

There is one positive one and that is Mr James McAvoy who just finds a way to defy all odds and continue his winning streak, in all the time I’ve watched him I can’t think of a time he’s been bad in a movie or not given his all to a role and he is so good as Xavier once again that everytime he was on screen I loved it.

And so that was X-Men: Dark Phoenix and as someone who loves and adores this franchise this is probably my least favorite film of 2019 so far, a film that save for Mr McAvoy just makes every wrong move imaginable and as someone who held out hope to see that hope dashed just makes it feel 50,000 volts worse, 1.5 out of 5.