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X-MEN: DARK PHOENIX directed by Simon Kinberg (11/2/18)
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Started by Bosco685,

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Bosco685

Bosco685

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Here's what Mark Hughes from Forbes.com had to say, who for the most part is far more level-headed and fair than Scott Mendelson.

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Now, read on for my full review of X-Men: Dark Phoenix...

 

Simon Kinberg has written a lot of films, including X-Men sequels The Last Stand, Days of Future Past, and Apocalypse. But he's never directed a movie before. So word that he was directing Dark Phoenixcaused some skepticism among the press and fandom. I was personally among the people shaking their heads at the studio's willingness to hand a big-budget franchise sequel to a producer with no prior directing experience, when there are so many qualified hungry filmmakers out there who could've easily handled the project.

 

While the result is not among the best X-Men movies, it's not among the worst either. It is safely in the middle range of "okay," flawed but with some things to praise and overall managing to maintain the status quo without improving it nor tanking it. Anyone who expected an embarrassment or a trainwreck won't find it here. Nor will anyone hoping for a definitive adaptation of "The Dark Phoenix Saga" or a return to the spectacular quality of Day of Future Past or Logan find what they're looking for.

 

Dark Phoenix is an improvement over Apocalypse, with much better visual effects and action sequences, a streamlined and coherent story, and enough positives to push it over the line from "rotten" to "fresh" when I rank it at Rotten Tomatoes. It's also flawed, lacking the ensemble chemistry, strong emotional beats, well-defined character arcs, and nuanced socially relevant context that drives the best entries in the franchise. The result is a film that will probably entertain most of the mainstream average audience, will please a lot of fans of the franchise who are willing to forgive its flaws, and serve as an acceptable close-out of Fox's X-Men series. It's not the grand finale the franchise truly deserves -- the series already attained that with Days of Future Past and Logan, a one-two punch of perfection that would've been an ideal sendoff, sans Apocalypse -- but it does help make up some for The Last Stand and is generally a decent action-driven popcorn release.

 

That's actually one of the more surprising things about Dark Phoenix-- the action, especially in the first half of the film, is pretty good and often great. The opening flashback sequence and subsequent space sequence look fantastic and deliver engaging visual spectacles with good character thrills to boot. The aftermath of the space sequence, and the reactions of various X-Men when they arrive back at Charles Xavier's mansion-school, is also mostly very well done. So half an hour in, I was surprised at how much I was enjoying the film, and at how impressive Kinberg's directing was.

 

From there, the next half hour was less consistently engaging, with pacing issues and thin characterization relying too heavily on big eruptions of anger, sorrow, or violence. But it still mostly stayed on track, introducing new elements that were intriguing and expanding the history of the X-Men's world. So an hour into the film, although it had lost some of the power of its first half hour, it was still overall a good time that greatly improved on Apocalypse. I settled in for what I assumed would be a ramped-up pace headed into the climax, and some further expansion of the stakes and cosmic elements.

 

Unfortunately, Dark Phoenix continued to decline in quality through the back half of its second act, with choppy editing and a lot of "why would they do that??" or "why wouldn't they do this instead??" moments. Characters were treated as tools to advance the plot points, as the story hurtled toward its climax so fast it left a lot of fascinating story and character arcs behind.

 

There are still some good moments in the back half of Dark Phoenix, for sure, including some action beats that work well. But it struggles to justify why it didn't just cut straight to the climax once the first hour was over, and much of it winds up feeling like unearned filler -- a problem created, I suspect, from significant editing to keep it under two hours.

 

Although the film is not as bad as some of the harsher critiques say it is, I am not inclined to defend it too strenuously. It could've and should've been better, and I respect the opinion of those who take a more negative view of the film. Yet I can't help thinking back to my review of X-Men: Apocalypse, in which I said we've become so accustomed to great superhero fare we have perhaps lost our ability to recognize and accept average entries in the genre. And I feel the same is true again with regard to X-Men: Dark Phoenix, which is not "great" or even "very good," but is simply "okay" with a touch of "pretty good" at the start.

That last paragraph is so true. If a film is not an instant massive win story-wise, then it must be beat down and compared to just those movies that reached that bar.

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@therealsilvermane

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29 minutes ago, fantastic_four said:

It was at 16% on RT when I woke up around 2 AM, but now it's up to 21%.  ON THE RISE!  (:

At least it's beating Fantastic Four which finished at 9%.  :boo:

Who knows? Maybe it'll beat the 27% RT scores of Suicide Squad and Batman v Superman? #whatdocriticsknow #movethegoalposts

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paperheart

paperheart

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3 hours ago, @therealsilvermane said:

Who knows? Maybe it'll beat the 27% RT scores of Suicide Squad and Batman v Superman? #whatdocriticsknow #movethegoalposts

any chance the academy member, who said he'd never vote for an Avengers movie for Best Picture, might consider Dark Phoenix?

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drotto

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The bad press for this film is likely hurting the reviews.  It has so many strikes against it even without seeing the film, that arevdifdicult to overcome.

 

1. Well publicized reshoots.

2. Reported bad screenings.

3. A cast the has come across as phoning it in.

4. Fox left over film

5. Pending Disney reboot

6. Retread story being Dark Pheonix was done partial and badly in Last Stand.

7. Bland trailers 

 

Even if the film is actually amazing that is a lot of bad press to overcome.

Edited by drotto
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Bosco685

Bosco685

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33 minutes ago, drotto said:

The bad press for this film is likely hurting the reviews.  It has so many strikes against it even without seeing the film, that arevdifdicult to overcome.

 

1. Well publicized reshoots.

2. Reported bad screenings.

3. A cast the has come across as phoning it in.

4. Fox left over film

5. Pending Disney reboot

6. Retread story being Dark Pheonix was done partial and badly in Last Stand.

7. Bland trailers 

 

Even if the film is actually amazing that is a lot of bad press to overcome.

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Anfield Fox

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38 minutes ago, drotto said:

The bad press for this film is likely hurting the reviews.  It has so many strikes against it even without seeing the film, that arevdifdicult to overcome.

 

1. Well publicized reshoots.

2. Reported bad screenings.

3. A cast the has come across as phoning it in.

4. Fox left over film

5. Pending Disney reboot

6. Retread story being Dark Pheonix was done partial and badly in Last Stand.

7. Bland trailers 

 

Even if the film is actually amazing that is a lot of bad press to overcome.

All great points. Shame really because it was so much better than I imagined due to all the above.

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Bosco685

Bosco685

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14 minutes ago, Anfield Fox said:

All great points. Shame really because it was so much better than I imagined due to all the above.

Your post gives me even more hope. I'm going on Friday.

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Bosco685

Bosco685

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5 hours ago, Anfield Fox said:

Saw X-Men. I was expecting a disaster but I liked it. I can happily say it is not what the critics are making it out to be. It's not a faithful adaptation of the comics by any means but the story was engaging, the acting was good, the action was great and the score was incredible. Also it was very dark. I would put it somewhere in the middle for the series as a whole. Leaps and bounds better than "Apocalypse".

I could take a film in the middle. Better than a total bust (what some want it to be).

:banana:

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mattn792

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4 minutes ago, Bosco685 said:

I could take a film in the middle. Better than a total bust (what some want it to be).

:banana:

How many people do you think will go see this movie just for a hate watching (and ham handedly contribute to its box office rake)? 

And no, I won't be participating in such an exercise.  Dark Phoenix will get the Dark Tower treatment as well (e.g. when its free on On Demand, it shall be viewed...and mocked).

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Bosco685

Bosco685

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2 minutes ago, mattn792 said:

How many people do you think will go see this movie just for a hate watching (and ham handedly contribute to its box office rake)? 

And no, I won't be participating in such an exercise.  Dark Phoenix will get the Dark Tower treatment as well (e.g. when its free on On Demand, it shall be viewed...and mocked).

Joan Crawford - is that you?

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