The long running X-Men franchise has had plenty of hit films, yet, it’s hard to forget The Last Stand. In that film, Simon Kinberg (X-Men: Days of Future Past, Apocalypse, Dark Phoenix) botched the Dark Phoenix Saga, written by John Byrne, Chris Claremont, and Dave Cockrum. The Last Stand had way too much going on plot-wise, which negatively affected how Dark Phoenix was handled. A lot of fans were upset, and it literally resulted in the franchise being shut down for five years until it was rebooted with the new James McAvoy (X-Men Franchise, Wanted) led cast in X-Men: First Class. We aren’t going to talk about X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Without a doubt there was much trepidation and fear when it was revealed that Simon Kinberg was assigned not only to write Dark Phoenix, but also to direct it. Critics haven’t been too nice to it, and in this writer’s humble opinion it seems like a lot of this backlash is still aimed at The Last Stand as Dark Phoenix is a complete success in my book.
The most recent X-Men film before Dark Phoenix was Apocalypse. In this film a good amount of the new cast are introduced, such as Jean Grey, played by Sophie Turner (Game of Thrones, X-Men: Apocalypse), Scott Summers/Cyclops, played by Tye Sheridan (Ready Player One, Mud), Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler, played by Kodi Smit-McPhee (Let Me In, The Road), and last but not least, Ororo Munroe/Storm, played by Alexandra Shipp (Shaft, Straight Outta Compton). While critics haven’t been too kind to that film either, I believe it was a natural progression from the excellent adaptation of Days of Future Past. While Oscar Isaac’s (New Star Wars Trilogy, Ex Machina) iteration of Apocalypse left much to be desired, the film accomplished its’ goal. The X-Men are finally respected by the leaders of the world and humans and mutants live in harmony. This is exactly where Dark Phoenix picks up several years later, this time in the 90’s.
With the X-Men now directly helping the President under the guiding hand of Charles Xavier, NASA’s latest mission has a catastrophic failure when it hits an unknown force. Against the wishes of Raven/Mystique, played by Jennifer Lawrence (Hunger Games Films, Silver Linings Playbook), Charles sends the X-Men into space for the first time in the long-running franchise. They arrive to find the shuttle spinning hopelessly, with no way to contact the crew. Cyclops uses a periscope gadget to amplify his powers to stop the shuttle from spinning, while Nightcrawler and Quicksilver teleport into the shuttle to gather the crew. They quickly retrieve everyone and teleport back to the ship only to realize they’ve left the ships’ captain behind. Again, against the wishes of Raven, Charles insists they leave no one behind, which causes Nightcrawler and Jean to teleport back to the shuttle. Amidst all the confusion, while the mysterious force threatens to destroy the shuttle, Nightcrawler finds the Captain of the shuttle, but can not get back to Jean in time. He teleports without her as the cosmic entity overtakes the ship and gets absorbed into her, while bursting into a giant explosion, seemingly killing Jean. As the X-Men temporarily mourn Jean’s loss, they realize she somehow survived.
Back on Earth, the X-Men celebrate their victory as the young students at Xavier’s School for the Gifted whisper about Jean Grey’s miraculous survival. They give her the nickname, Phoenix. As Jean struggles to control her powers, mysterious shape-shifting aliens arrive elsewhere. These aliens are the D’Bari, whose home world has been destroyed by the Phoenix Force, and are led by Vuk, who quickly morphs into Jessica Chastain (Interstellar, It: Chapter Two). Jean realizes her abilities could put the ones she loves in danger, so she leaves the X-Mansion, not knowing what to do and unbeknownst to her she is followed by Vuk and the D’Bari.
Dark Phoenix is probably the most intense and gritty X-Men movie made to date, not including the R-rated Deadpool films. The second act features a lot of surprise turns of character and introduces us to Magneto who is living happily on an island with other mutants, which, with a closer look at the credits can only be Genosha. It was disappointing that this wasn’t made clear in the actual film, because Genosha has plenty of lore behind it in the comics and X-Men: The Animated Series, which came out in the 90’s. As more and more characters team up to either save or kill Jean, the film ramps up to an exciting climax on a train in the third act.
While I think the Dark Phoenix saga was adapted better than The Last Stand’s attempt, I believe in the future, in the hands of Marvel and Kevin Feige, it could be done even better. It saddens me that critics and fans can’t seem to enjoy this version though. The film deals with trauma and how characters deal with it in a realistic manner, set in an unrealistic universe. The action scenes are thrilling and exciting, we get to see the younger X-Men use their well-controlled powers in unique ways, and Hans Zimmer (Inception, The Lion King) creates a dark score which sucks viewers in from the very beginning. Unfortunately, the Disney-Fox merger negatively impacted this films’ chance of success. As the pre-production/production had already been well under way before the merger happened, Dark Phoenix was suddenly to be the last film in the long-running franchise. I can’t be sure, but I can only imagine this wasn’t Simon Kinberg’s initial intention, and the fact that the film underwent extensive reshoots seems to support that theory. It’s always a bummer when business/politics negatively interfere with a popular franchise.
All in all, Dark Phoenix was a fun ride. If you go into it with that mindset, I imagine you will enjoy it. If you’re going into the theater with unrealistic expectations, you’re only going to be disappointed, which most of the superfans/comic book fans seem to be. By no means do I expect everyone to hold the same opinion as me, yet, I do wish that more people today could separate themselves from some of the toxic fandom which seems to be everywhere. In a social media age, it is nearly impossible to make something that is universally accepted. Although Endgame seems to be the exception to the rule. Hopefully the X-Men can be adapted in new and interesting ways now that the characters have finally come home to Marvel. As for this version of the X-Men, thank you for the many years of excellent storytelling and intriguing characters.
