Written and Directed by Simon Kinberg

Starring: Sophie Turner, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Nicholas Hoult, Jennifer Lawrence, Jessica Chastain

Dark Phoenix is a movie I didn’t hate as much as I thought I would. It’s still bad for sure, a mostly dull and eventless film that was doomed from its inception. We all knew it would be, the last 20th Century Fox film to be pumped out before they finally relinquished the rights to Disney. There was no incentive to try. Everyone involved with its production seems uninterested in its outcome. The actors all lazily read their lines, many of the action involves people being tossed into walls, and really, not much happens. The music is by far the best part, and way too good for this picture. Hans Zimmer’s score acts like an unintentional lullaby, and softens the deep sleep this movie will put you under.

The opening scene has a young kid Jean Gray watch her parents die in a car crash because of her powers. What I want to know is how does her mom know Jean is the one controlling the radio. Charles Xavier takes her from the hospital to his school, and promises to help her use her powers for good, as long as she is willing.

Flash forward about 17 years later (it’s 1992 now, oh right, these films take place in the past). A space shuttle has been hit by what they think is a solar flare. The X-Men are called to save the people on board. Well really Charles makes them. Jean joins.

All the astronauts are saved, but Jean gets hit by that enigmatic energy, definitely isn’t a solar flare. Her body absorbs it all, Nightcrawler teleports her back to the ship, she must be dead for sure. But no, she immediately opens her eyes and seems fine. They head back home.

Strange things start happening to Jean. Her powers grow stronger, “it’s off the charts” Beast tells her. Soon Charles can’t read her mind anymore. Soon the mental barriers he placed inside her head as a kid to bury her trauma are destroyed. Now Jean is pissed. And sad. The camera blurs in and out of focus whenever her Phoenix powers start happening. Such filmmaking!

She hurts those around her. She spends a lot of time crying. Sophie Turner, as I pointed out in Apocalypse, has been miscast as Jean Gray. Although she is much better in this movie than she was in that. I actually could see past Sansa at times. I liked the effects on her, if only there was some kind of point to it all.

Tye Sheridan is back as Cyclops. Meh. The girl playing Storm again is so bad I can’t believe she is Storm. Jennifer Lawrence has always been miserable as Mystique. She’s trash in all the X Men films but here you can see in every shot she does not want to be here. I cried out for the days of Rebecca Romijn. Nicholas Hoult was doing well until a conversation with McAvoy. “admit you were wrong Charles!”. You’ll laugh.

And McAvoy himself? It may be one of his worst performances. Gone is the joy of watching him and Fassbender play off each other. The joy is mostly missing cause, yeah, “Dark” Phoenix. But also McAvoy doesn’t even talk or move like Professor X anymore. He’s a different being entirely in this movie. I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.

The basic dilemma has Mystique, or Raven (Riven? sometimes they call her that, I shit you not), call out Charles for constantly endangering mutant lives to saves humans. She says he’s in it for his ego, for the accolades and press. Charles thinks every little bit helps, and wants to keep the peace with humans by whatever means necessary.

Anyway Jean runs off to find her father, who she discovers is alive. He survived the that car crash, but that also means he gave Jean up. She finds him, the X-Men find her. A bland action scene takes place. One of the X-Men is killed, and the movie doesn’t even seem to care.

Later Jean seeks out Magneto, who has hidden off in a refugee like camp with other mutants. She thinks he can help her. He can’t. Meanwhile an alien race is on Earth, somehow. They followed the cosmic entity that Jean absorbed. They can shape shift. The leader takes the form of Jessica Chastain, who I swear to you, I swear to you I thought was Bryce Dallas Howard until the end credits.

The leader explains to Jean that power starter the universe, and destroyed their alien race’s home planet. Now she wants to have it. A pitiful action scene takes places as Magneto and Beast come to kill Jean. Charles, Cyclops and Storm try to stop them. Jean takes them out with ease. Charles begs her to stop. “You can do anything you set your mind to”, a line he told her when they first met. “Show me Charles, walk to me”, she replies. “You know I can’t”. And then, in what was a great idea on paper, Jean forces Charles to move with her mind, and walk out of his wheelchair and up the stairs to her. This looks less like a paraplegic man trying to walk and more like the Crooked Man from the Conjuring universe. I almost burst out laughing. But didn’t. Strange.

The movie ends in an extended finale on a train. I actually kinda liked the action here, especially Nightcrawler’s scenes. At least the movie was inventive with him. I liked also that the alien race stayed in their shape shifted human forms. Dunno, thought that was a good choice all things considered. But of course, it’s all a letdown. Jean is too powerful, and it really does nothing for me that she reaches her hands out and vaporizes the aliens. Or the phony final moments when we are supposed to believe she dies killing the leader.

This is a movie that doesn’t have a lot going on, and it’s uninterested in so much of itself. Evan Peters returns as Quicksilver, and is still as good of an actor as he usually is. So of course the movie largely omits him. Zimmer’s score kept me awake during it all, and if not for that the movie would be way worse than it is. There are some cool choices it makes, at times I felt like I was part of a decent play. It’s just that it gets boring the longer it goes on, and it doesn’t care about its outcome. and none of it matters since this shit is all gonna be retconned in the next Disney films anyway. And poor Sophie Turner, given the thankless lead of a movie that wastes what is supposedly the best X Men storyline.

The whole 20th century fox and Disney rights thing alerted us to the poor quality this was doomed to have. And the marketing did too. What’s weird is that Sophie’s line where she says , “I lose control…it feels really good”, has been cut in half. The part about it feeling good is out, I guess they wanted to make her more empathetic. How about just don’t make the movie?

So I knew this movie was going to be bad, and really, I don’t hate it. I don’t even regret that I saw it. I just feel bad for everyone in it. One of the better parts is seeing the X Men return to Earth after saving those astronauts in the beginning. They’re greeted by cheers and many little kids wearing their likeness in admiration. A little boy has blue face paint on like Nightcrawler, a little girl holds up a small Mystique toy. They’re so happy. The poor kids, they didn’t know this movie was going to suck.

The movie’s last scene has Charles and Eric playing chess in Paris, and a final shot to obviously show that Jean is alive. Am I even watching X Men anymore?