REVIEW -- X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019)

Dark Phoenix (also known as X-Men: Dark Phoenix) is a 2019 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics X-Men characters, produced by 20th Century Fox and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. It is the twelfth installment in the X-Men film series, a direct sequel to X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), and the seventh and final installment in the main X-Men series. The film is written and directed by Simon Kinberg and stars an ensemble cast featuring James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Sophie Turner, Tye Sheridan, Alexandra Shipp, and Jessica Chastain. In Dark Phoenix, the X-Men must face the full power of the Phoenix after a mission in space goes wrong.

After X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) erased the events of X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) from the series' timeline, Kinberg expressed interest in a new adaptation of Chris Claremont and John Byrne's "The Dark Phoenix Saga" in a future film that would be more faithful than his previous attempt with The Last Stand, which was not well received. The new adaptation was confirmed as a follow-up to Apocalypse in 2016. Kinberg signed on to make his directorial debut in June 2017, when the majority of the cast was set to return from Apocalypse. Filming began later that month in Montreal and was completed in October 2017; the entire third act was later reshot in late 2018 following poor test screenings. The film was dedicated to the memory of X-Men co-creator Stan Lee.

Dark Phoenix was theatrically released in the United States on June 7, 2019. Critics described the film as "boring" and criticized both the plot and character development, although the performances (particularly McAvoy and Turner) received some praise. Many viewed the film as a disappointing and anticlimactic conclusion to the Fox X-Men series, and it is the worst-reviewed installment of the franchise according to Rotten Tomatoes.

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Cast:

James McAvoy as Charles Xavier / Professor X
Michael Fassbender as Erik Lehnsherr / Magneto
Jennifer Lawrence as Raven Darkhölme / Mystique
Nicholas Hoult as Hank McCoy / Beast
Sophie Turner as Jean Grey / Phoenix

Summer Fontana portrays a young Jean Grey.
Tye Sheridan as Scott Summers / Cyclops
Alexandra Shipp as Ororo Munroe / Storm
Kodi Smit-McPhee as Kurt Wagner / Nightcrawler
Evan Peters as Peter Maximoff / Quicksilver
Jessica Chastain as Vuk The leader of a shape-shifting alien race known as the D'Bari who manipulates the Phoenix. Kinberg described her as "the devil on Jean's shoulder", while Chastain called her character "clinical". Chastain also plays Margaret, the woman Vuk impersonates.

Additionally, Kota Eberhardt portrays Selene Gallio, while Andrew Stehlin portrays Ariki, a character that was initially reported as Red Lotus. Scott Shepherd and Hannah Anderson portray Jean's parents John and Elaine, respectively. Ato Essandoh appears as "Jones", one of Vuk's fellow D'Bari followers; Brian d'Arcy James appears as the President of the United States; and Lamar Johnson appears briefly as Match. Halston Sage cameos as Dazzler in the character's first cinematic appearance. Veteran X-Men writer Chris Claremont makes a cameo appearance as a crowd member during the scene when Xavier accepts his award for rescuing the space shuttle Endeavour crew. Daniel Cudmore, who previously portrayed Colossus in the franchise, was announced to have a role, but did not appear.

Plot: (FULL Spoilers)

In 1975, eight-year-old Jean Grey inadvertently uses her telekinesis to cause a car accident that kills her parents. Shortly afterwards, Professor Charles Xavier takes her to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, where he mentally blocks the accident from her memories and helps her hone her psychic abilities.

In 1992, the X-Men respond to a distress signal from the space shuttle Endeavour, which is critically damaged by a solar flare-like energy. While the X-Men save all of the astronauts, Jean is stranded and ends up absorbing all of the energy into her body. Jean survives the event, and her psychic powers are greatly amplified as a result. At the same time, the mental block placed by Xavier is destroyed, and she accidentally attacks the mutants celebrating at Xavier's school after a mental breakdown, passing out afterward. She later travels to her childhood hometown of Red Hook, New York, after discovering that her father is still alive. The X-Men attempt to take Jean home, but she injures Peter Maximoff and accidentally kills Raven Darkhölme and several local police officers before flying away.

Jean travels to the mutant refugee island of Genosha to seek assistance from Erik Lehnsherr in controlling her powers, but is turned away by Erik after she engages in combat with U.S. military forces tasked with her arrest. Jean meets Vuk, the leader of a shape-shifting alien race known as the D'Bari, who explains to her that she has been possessed by a force of cosmic power which wiped out the D'Baris' home planet years ago. The power had consumed all those it came across, until it encountered Jean. Meanwhile, Hank McCoy, who feels betrayed by Xavier's manipulation of Jean's memories, allies with Erik and the mutant refugees in an attempt to put down Jean in New York City.

Upon learning of Erik's plan to kill Jean, the X-Men confront him and his faction in New York. As they battle, Erik manages to infiltrate the building and confront Jean but is overpowered by her new abilities. Xavier then enters the building with Scott Summers. Jean attacks them until Xavier convinces her to read his memories – allowing her personality to resurface. Feeling remorseful, Jean asks Vuk to take the force from her; however, it quickly turns out that doing so would kill her. Xavier and Scott are able to prevent Vuk from fully absorbing the force from Jean, before both mutant factions, including Jean, are captured by the U.S. government and placed on a train headed towards a secret containment facility.

A remorseful Xavier admits to a very resentful Hank that the latter was right in his earlier accusations of violating Jean's mind and lying to her. The train is attacked by Vuk and her D'Bari forces. When the soldiers are overpowered by the shape-shifters, the mutants are freed from their restraints to combat the threat. Xavier confers with Jean within his mind, allowing Jean's personality to gain control of the force within her. Vuk once again attempts to drain Jean of the force, but Jean takes Vuk into outer space, then takes the stolen power from the D'Bari, killing her. She then disappears as her full potential is unleashed.

In the aftermath of the incident, the school is renamed the Jean Grey School for Gifted Youngsters and Hank becomes their new dean; with Xavier having retired after decades of fighting for mutant rights. While settling himself in Paris, Xavier is reunited with Erik and reluctantly agrees to play a game of chess with him. As they start playing, a flaming phoenix appears in the sky.

The Verdict:

Trust me, this review won't be that long as everyone's thoughts on this film seem to be unanimous across the board. As the last film of the Fox era of the X-Men film franchise, Dark Phoenix opens to the lowest rating and box office draw in the series ever. That's not without reason either. From the sheer amount of reshoots, rewrites, and rescheduling, it seemed like this film was doomed to fail right off the bat. What I couldn't understand was why did Fox allow the same writer, Simon Kinberg, that screwed up X-Men: The Last Stand to tarnish this legendary story arc from the comics with another piss poor adaptation? Don't get me wrong. Kinberg is capable of greatness. He's given us Star War Rebels and the original Sherlock Holmes with his writing credits while serving as a producer and creative consultant for a wealth of films. He's had success in other areas of nerd culture in terms of adaptations and screenwriting, but it seems that he was too timid to adapt this story as how it should be portrayed. Bringing in aliens from outer space is one thing, but having them be something radically unrelated nor associated with said story is giving the impression to your fan base that you're pulling shit out from left field. This is amplified when said writer completely ignores some of the events from the previous film that this one is allegedly a sequel to, X-Men: Apocalypse. 

(Sighs) I'm getting ahead of myself here... We'll discuss that and much more as we dissect this film into chunks for analysis. 

Characters

I don't blame the actors and actresses cast to be in this film. They did as much as they could with so little to work with on this script. Jean Grey/Phoenix (Sophie Turner) was reduced to merely repeating "I can't control it..." for majority of this film, which is a massive disservice to her acting talents. For some reason, Kinberg credits her as the "main character" of this film. In a lot of ways I can see that but this is just as much a film about Professor Charles Xavier's (James McAvoy) growing arrogance and past blunders in the upbringing of his students. Boy, did they paint a horrible light onto Xavier here though. I don't understand why it was necessary to repeat that negative character trait here that was recycled from X-Men: The Last Stand. It had a lukewarm reception to fans then and didn't rub me the right way here either. Mystique/Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) and Quicksilver (Evan Peters) were in this film long enough to make a cup of coffee and that's it. Lawrence had wanted out of these films since Days of Future Past so I wasn't surprised in the least that Mystique was killed off early on. I still don't understand what was up with that ultimate cringe-worthy line of "You might want to think about changing the name to X-Women." I kid you not - I facepalmed in the theater when I heard that come out of Jennifer Lawrence's mouth.

Magneto (Michael Fassbender) is the best thing about these films. Even with a lackluster script, you can't deny that this dude knows how to make chicken shit into chicken salad with whatever he's handed in terms of his acting ability. He demands your attention in every scene that he's in here and has more on-screen presence than even Sophie Turner's Jean Grey/Phoenix to say that she's the titular character here.

(Cracks up laughing) If you didn't laugh at that scene, then we can't be friends. Thank you, Michael Fassbender.

Tye Sheridan's Scott Summers/Cyclops was up the same creek as her when Cyclops barely got any dialogue in this either, outside of the best line in this entire thing in terms of defending him and Jean's relationship, "IF YOU TOUCH HER I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU" (to Magneto) - even though it came off here that their relationship wasn't that serious at all. At least he had more to say and do than Kodi Smit-McPhee's Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler, who was essentially there for them to have someone who could fucking teleport when the plot demanded it. Otherwise, he was knocked out or nowhere to be found when the action went down until the end of the film. I guess it could have been worse. He could have been Nicholas Hoult's Hank McCoy/Beast, who was just here to look like he was taking a shit for majority of this film's runtime when he was on a wire, flipping around with CGI blue fur on his face. Boy, did he feel like a massive waste of space on this cast. People can "stan" all they want for Alexandra Shipp's Storm, but she's just as easily forgettable as Beast and Nightcrawler in this film. 

Jessica Chastain's fineness was severely wasted in this film. That was crime all on it's own.

Last but not least, we have Jessica Chastain's Vuk that was surrounded in mystery upon the announcement of her casting when it didn't amount to nothing significant here at all. She ends up being the leader of an alien race that serves as the lackluster secondary (maybe third behind Magneto at one point) antagonist of a film that's pretty underwhelming to begin with.

Dazzler makes a cameo in this film, even though I thought she would have felt more at home in the previous entries set in the '70s.

Oh yeah, Halston Sage makes a cameo in this film as Dazzler for some reason, so there's that...

Narrative

Right off the bat, it felt like this film was a tale of two cities. The first instance of this is the opening sequence of the film where the X-Men are called in to rescue the crew of the space shuttle Endeavor. I was digging all of this as we got to see the fruits of Mystique's training this team as they were all using their powers in tandem while Xavier was coaching from the mansion with the assistance of Cerebro to enhance his own abilities to monitor the situation. Thing play out like the comics and Jean's forced to hold the shuttle together while Nightcrawler teleports the remaining astronaut to safety. Some fog (which I'm sure the same special effects that were used to create the gaseous fart that was Galactus in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer) then slipped into Jean Grey's body and she was somehow "changed" for the rest of the film due to this cosmic entity.

The Phoenix Force (or rather the same fart cloud that they were calling Galactus in that F4: Rise of the Silver Surfer film a few years back...) consumes Jean Grey.

This is the exact moment where Kinberg messed up. I'm not talking about in terms of being true to the comics, but in screwing up their own continuity from X-Men: Apocalypse. In that film's climax, Jean Grey already shown that she had the potential to have that level of power when she destroyed Apocalypse. Right off the bat, this film acts like that didn't even happen at all. There's no mention nor acknowledgement of this event at all here. They don't even acknowledge how or why she was able to do that. This film treats this "entity" or whatever that she was possessed by on the space shuttle was the sole reason that her telepathic and telekinetic abilities were cranked up to eleven. For all of it's flaws, X-Men: The Last Stand didn't have this problem. They simplified the narrative by stating that Jean Grey always had the potential of the Phoenix Force, just that Charles Xavier sealed off that portion of her mind for her abilities wouldn't be radically out of control. This film recycles the part where Xavier tampered with her memories to hide the memory of Jean killing her parents (which was a lie too, since her father survived the incident) when her powers first manifested at that capacity for destruction, only to just shoehorn the cosmic entity known as the Phoenix Force into this plot with an half-assed explanation. Jean Grey would have been this dangerous with or without the entity within her body; this film makes this more than apparently obvious. It just comes across as Kinberg attempting to merely reuse his same script as before, but adding the cosmic element that people complained about that was absent and removing the whole "mutant cure" subplot from the narrative. 

Get used to that image. That's pretty much everything Sophie Turner does while playing the Dark Phoenix.

That along with this magical vibe that the film was trying to convey where the world was praising the X-Men as heroes for this one act of heroism. No one saw them defeat Apocalypse, so they would not have received that much praise from that feat alone. It just seems like we, as a viewing audience, missed a massive amount of exposition explaining how we got to this point where the X-Men and most notably, Charles Xavier, were recognized as international heroes. This vibe gives this film it's second identity crisis where it seems like that they wanted to convey the X-Men as this summer blockbuster superhero team that we're used to seeing (*Ahem*...in the Marvel Cinematic Universe with the Avengers-centric films...) doing good for the world and all that jazz, only to flip the script when it takes one incident from Jean Grey killing one of their own and flipping a few police cars over (by the way, we never see those guys actually die either...) to cause the world to blacklist the X-Men and mutantkind again? Hell, after the events of X-Men: Apocalypse, I thought we would have seen their world even stricter on policing those with mutant powers. 

From the impression that this film left on me, it seemed like Simon Kinberg was ultimately trying to do about four decades worth of advancement and storytelling from X-Men comics in one movie and paid the price for it. You could blame this film's shortcomings on Fox's focus on heavily promoting Alita: Battle Angel instead of this film all you want, but I doubt this film would have fared any better even if it had it's original ending with the Skrulls and stuff that would have been (more than it already was at the end) compared to Marvel Studios' Captain Marvel film from earlier this year. Not to mention that the various re-shoots stick out like a sore thumb too. Sophie Turner visually gains and loses weight throughout the film from scene to scene. I was constantly asking myself, "WHERE THE FUCK DID THAT BLOOD COME FROM AND WHY IS IT MOVING IN EVERY SCENE!!??" as I was sitting in the theater. It was driving me to the point of insanity at one point of the film until I jokingly disregarded it as her mom's spaghetti. I know, bad joke... 

Jean killing Mystique was borderline comical though. It had like no emotional impact though for the viewers as the early trailers for this film spoiled that in the first place, along with press releases that Jennifer Lawrence wanted out of her contract. That was just an easy way to get what they wanted out of her, much like how X-Men: The Last Stand wrote off Xavier and Cyclops in that film with little thought put behind it. Mystique's death had like little impact on the X-Men though. They had that small funeral for her and moved on like it was another day at work. Beast left after blaming everything on Xavier and sides with Magneto. In retrospect, Magneto would not have had any reason to side with anyone in this conflict if he wasn't forced to be a "murderer" again to avenge Mystique's death and later, honor her memory.

If I were to guess, the decision of the D'Bari's inclusion of this film was inspired from this scene from Uncanny X-Men (1963) #135 by John Byrne. 

Outside of the problems with Jean Grey and the mismanagement of how the Phoenix Force was portrayed, this film had another glaring narrative issue with the introduction of the alien race known as the D'Bari. Their leader is Vuk, portrayed by Jessica Chastain, who merely acts as the devil on Jean Grey's shoulder in a sense, encouraging her to use her powers for her own personal gain. This was reminiscent of how Magneto manipulated Jean Grey to his side during X-Men: The Last Stand, but the catch here was that Vuk wanted to use her and the Phoenix Force to eliminate the entire human race and recreate the Earth in the image of her destroyed planet's former glory. Her plan isn't that bad (just another cliched global destruction megalomaniac), but the problem lies in the execution. Her and D'Bari acted as if that Jean Grey is the only one that is compatible with the Phoenix Force, but by the end of the film, she's siphoning off the Phoenix Force from Jean Grey as if it's the life force from the kids in Hocus Pocus. In the end, she's defeated by the same thing that she sought after by Jean overflowing her with the Phoenix Force until she couldn't handle that much power at once - hence being destroyed in the process. To say that Kinberg was so worried that this film was going to be compared to Captain Marvel, he didn't worry about that in regard to the special effects in the final battle. Jean was literally Captain Marvel if you were looking at the effects. I was blown away at the fact that they didn't even try to make that look different in any way in the least. 

Consider this a bit of fantasy booking/fan-fiction writing in this regard, but I feel like this film would have benefited more being a film focused solely on Jean Grey/Phoenix on her relationships with her mentor/teacher, Charles Xavier, along with her friends within the X-Men as they coped with the dilemma upon unleashing the force within Jean Grey that allowed her to defeat Apocalypse with ease. Instead, this film was plagued by the same mistakes that Kinberg dealt with The Last Stand that saw that film, along with this one, juggle with far too much unnecessary baggage. That being said, they would have had to change much with this that they brought to the table. If they wanted to keep in the X-Men's good will mission to save the Endeavor crew, then that's fine. Just scrap the stuff where there's a parade ready to welcome them back on Earth and use that as a means to show that mankind's still leery to the good that mutants can do, but have them be optimistic about whether that they could rely on them or not. Show that despite their efforts in Days of Future Past, the Sentinel program is alive and well, but in a different manner as the world's governments have been investing in global defense satellites to monitor and neutralize potential mutant threats. The Endeavor crew were one of the teams running the final tests on these satellites when a freak accident causes their shuttle to malfunction before reentry into the Earth's atmosphere. Jean Grey could've fallen to Earth from the shuttle explosion but her survival comes from the Phoenix Force coming out again to protect her. The rest of the film could have been about her struggling to maintain her sense of herself from it's growing power. Eventually, it becomes too much for her to reel back in and she kills Mystique as planned. Jean then seeks out Magneto, begging for help on how to reel in her inner beast, begging to be released from its cage. After finding out that Mystique was slain at her hands, you still would get the conflict between Magneto and Phoenix, but his Brotherhood could play the part that the Shi'ar Imperial Guard played in the finale of that arc in the comics. The Brotherhood wants Phoenix dead for her crimes, while the X-Men think that their friend can be saved and fights to protect them. Both sides reach a stalemate when they realize that Jean's too powerful to overcome individually and join forces. Their combined forces fail in this task until Scott Summers/Cyclops pleads with her to come to her senses. Jean does so just long enough to shove him away and destroy herself with the on-board weapons on the global defense satellites that were shown at the start of the film. That way you get Chris Claremont's original ending to this story on the silver screen while manipulating it to fit this continuity as Jean is able to redeem herself with heroism like how this film portrayed in it's final moments. The film could end with Jean's funeral, acknowledging her for being a hero in the end that chose to sacrifice herself for the greater good out of love and affection to protect her family and friends from the monster that she had become. This ordeal would end both Xavier and Magneto's rivalry in a similar manner, where they will both continue to fight for a better world for mutantkind, but saw each other as brothers - equals.

I guess I should mention that this film is getting a surprisingly amount of support from the LGBQT community from the portrayal for Prof. X and Magneto's relationship at the end of this film. Xavier finds himself out in Paris after retiring from his duties as leader of the X-Men following the events of the film, only to find Magneto has made his way there as well. Magneto offers his long-time friend a place in his sanctuary for mutants like himself and they end the film with a friendly game of chess. I didn't see anything homosexual about their relationship in their relationship here or any of the previous films (outside of the original trilogy where Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen openly kissed off-set but that's a different story altogether), but I'm not going to knock anyone for what they got out of these films in terms of representation. The biggest appeal of the X-Men are that they are heroes (and villains) born into a world that fears and hates them, yet they wish to continue to protect it and find their own place to exist within in terms of equality. You don't have to be a mutant to understand and identify with that that struggle.

Is There Anything Good Here?

What the hell is that weak-ass looking shit?

Some of the fight sequences are really good, but there's too many moments where you feel like the X-Men not named Jean Grey are holding back in some scenes and going all out in others. Perfect example: In the scene where Beast has aligned himself with Magneto and his newfound group of mutant allies to kill Jean Grey for Mystique's demise and the X-Men intervene to stop them, Storm is toying around with this dude who has whips for hair. What the fuck? Are we back with Halle Berry's Storm and Ray Park's Toad in the original X-Men film again with this crap? Turn that fool into an ice cube or fry him to a crisp with a lightning bolt from the heavens or something! Alexandra Shipp's Storm would redeem herself in the train fight sequence, but that fight just came off really odd. Another thing that irked me about that fight though was Cyclops' blasts were missing. Hello, the only thing this fucker has to do is LOOK at his target and hit the button on the side of his visor. Somehow, he was able to reflect that shit off a car mirror and beat the bitch with pinpoint accuracy who was holding a knife at Xavier though. Goddamn, they made the X-Men come off stupid in that scene. I guess you could write it off as the X-Men were ATTEMPTING to use restraint in a public area with a ton of civilians in the surrounding area, but still, that scene was fucking stupid.

As cool as this looked, I couldn't help but laugh that it was ultimately ineffective against the D'Bari.

As much as I enjoyed the fight scene on the train against the hordes of D'Bari, I have a major gripe about it. The D'Bari's powers were never established. It just seemed like those aliens had whatever powers that the plot required and had whatever threshold/resistance to whoever and whatever at random. For instance, you would see Storm flying around, roasting tons of them off the hull of the train, only for these same guys to get back up minutes later. The soldiers on the train were getting slaughtered using guns on these guys but when Magneto, Beast, and Nightcrawler are fighting these very same guys hand to hand, they are dropping like flies. As cool as fuck some of that looked, it was just as bad that there was no consistency here. It really made me think of that line from the end of X2: X-Men United when everyone was looking towards Nightcrawler to go and teleport Jean to safety and he's shrugging his shoulders going, "She won't let me!" where Jean Grey somehow can control everyone else's powers for them or set limiters on them at her own discretion. Seriously, go back and watch the end of that film. That line is there without a shadow of a doubt. I remember it fondly as my roommates and I laughed at it enough in college. 

Some of the coolest parts of this film in terms of action were spoiled in the trailers, including Magneto's psychic blocking helmet getting crushed underneath the force of Jean Grey's powers, but my personal favorite wasn't to my surprise. Charles Xavier confronts Jean Grey right after Magneto fails to kill her and gives his tired and true spiel about "We (mutants) can do anything..." Jean gives him the coldest stare imaginable with her Phoenix-charged resting bitch-face and simply replies with, "Then walk..." I found myself laughing hysterically in the theater when she destroyed his wheelchair and forced him to stand up and walk up the stairs to engage her face-to-face. God, I'm laughing even writing about that scene. I haven't laughed that much since Dark Phoenix blew up his wheelchair in X-Men: The Animated Series or when the X-Men put his wheelchair on his grave during The Last Stand. Then there's that moment where Charles was shitting a brick at the Incredible Hulk beating the piss out of all of his students on the front lawn of the X-Mansion during the World War Hulk storyline in the comics.

God, that scene was so awesome. If you want a really good adaptation of Chris Claremont's work, then look no farther than X-Men: The Animated Series. It's a simple as that.

One of the few good points of this film was that once Jean Grey was at the brink of her destructive potential as the D'Bari's pawn and reduced most of the X-Men's efforts to oppose her as child's play, she found her mental clarity by reading Charles Xavier's mind (following the scene that was mentioned above). This was a clever role reversal in terms of what he did to her when she was a child. Xavier was always invading her mind for her "safety" (not to the radical extremes that his counterpart did in the original X-Men trilogy) but to protect her from herself. It wasn't to have a weapon at his disposal, Xavier truly wanted what was best for his surrogate daughter. Jean sees his intentions and memories and instantly feels remorse for what she's done. It adds a layer of redeeming qualities to Jean Grey that was completely absent from her character in The Last Stand. Between this scene and Xavier's formal apology to her on the train, that family bond between these iconic characters is firmly re-established - as it should be for an X-Men film. Jean Grey/Phoenix doesn't want to destroy the X-Men. No, she wants to protect her family when she is "reborn" on the train to oppose Vuk and rest of the D'Bari. In a bizarre twist of storytelling, I thought Kinberg got that much down in terms of an adaptation. In the comics, Jean Grey hones and masters the Phoenix Force to protect the universe and better yet, her friends and family within the X-Men, from the pending Shi'ar Empire's invasion. After that task is done, the Phoenix Force proves to be addictive as it revels in the destruction that this seemingly limitless power can create, thus ushering in the Dark Phoenix story arc. It seem like Kinberg did this progression with Jean Grey in reverse by having her tap into the worst that this power could do first, only to regress to a state where she has the mental clarity to wield it as a force for good instead of being this film's villain by the time it's all said and done.

(Shrugs) Maybe I'm giving Simon Kinberg a lot more credit here than he deserves, but in all honesty, he's done better work than this before and after X-Men: The Last Stand. So maybe his forte just isn't this storyline at all.

Watch It or Don't Bother?

We never get to see Jean at this level of her powers as the Dark Phoenix either. There's that one firebird shown during the climax but that's it.

Without a shadow of a doubt, don't bother seeing this in the theaters - don't even waste your money and time entertaining that thought. While I don't feel like it was as bad as X-Men: The Last Stand, Dark Phoenix just will be remembered as a massive disappointment and easily forgettable final nail in the coffin for the X-Men franchise under 20th Century Fox's banner. Too bad Logan couldn't have been the last film in this franchise while the X-Men brand ended with Days of Future Past after they fixed all of their colossal fuck-ups with their continuity with that film. 

I know that I went to see this out of sheer morbid curiosity on how bad that Fox could mess this up again for the second time, but I don't expect casual fans to have that much patience with this film. This will be on free television sooner more than later. For the price of admission, you could buy the paperback graphic novel of this original comic book story and read it yourself anyway if you haven't already.