What a long strange trip it’s been,
hasn’t it? Keep in mind, despite the soft reboot that occurred in X-Men:
First Class and X-Men: Days of Future Past, these movies have been going
off and on for nearly twenty years. Some have been good, Like X1, X2, X: First
Class, X: Days of Future Past, Deadpool, Wolverine, and Logan, some
have been bad like X3, and X: Origins, and some have just been kind of
meh, like Apocalypse, and, sadly, Dark Phoenix. Let’s get to it.
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| The Phoenix will rise! Again. And only be slightly better then the last time. |
We open in 1975 with the Grey family. An eight-year-old
Jean is on a road trip with her Mom and Dad. Things start going off the rails
when Jeans powers start acting up, she loses her control over her telekinesis
which causes a major car accident, killing her parents. In the hospital, she’s introduced
to Charles Xavier, who I think has just gotten back into the swing of things
after that Days of Future Past fiasco, whom takes her to his school for Gifted
Youngsters.
Flashforward to 1992, and the X-Men
are called in to help a disabled Space Shuttle Endeavour. The shuttle
had been damaged due to a ‘solar flare.’ The team suit up and take the Blackbird
into the upper atmosphere. Using Cyclops’ eyebeam, Jean’s Telekinesis, Storm’s
atmospheric control, Nightcrawler’s teleportation, and Quicksilver’s speed,
they’re able to save most of the crew. Unfortunately, the crew’s captain wasn’t
in the hold when PIETRO (damn it) supersped in, he’d been out trying to fix the
stabilizers. And to make matters worse, the totally-not-a-solar-flare cosmic
storm is almost upon them. Jean and Nightcrawler teleport over to try and save
the captain. With seconds to spare, Jean forces Nightcrawler to bamf away and
takes the brunt of the space storm alone. She absorbs the energy of the storm,
saving her team and the astronauts. Once the danger is passed, Kurt bamf’s over
and grabs her. The Blackbird touches down, and the X-Men are lauded as heroes again.
All in a day’s work.
Back at the mansion, the team is
celebrated for being heroes, but Raven and Charles have a fight in his office.
Raven feels that Charles is forcing to keep taking bigger and bigger risks, not
for the greater good, but because he’s addicted to the lifestyle being the
leader of a team of superheroes has garnered him. And Charles is of the opinion
that the team has to keep showing how useful that Mutants can be, as they’re
always just one bad day away from a revival of the Mutant Response Division,
Sentinels and Mutant Concentration Camps. While that is going on, Hank McCoy is
giving Jean a medical check-up. Absorbing a TON of cosmic energy like that can’t
be good for a person. But, to Hank’s shock, while there seems to be changes Jean’s
DNA, he doesn’t see anything particularly wrong. He wants to keep running tests
but lets her go celebrate with Scott.
Meanwhile, a group of alien’s crash
land in upstate New York. One of them seems to kill a woman and take on her
form, and then murder her party guests. The alien, who’s name is Vuk but I don’t
remember ever hearing anyone saying, and her team are looking for the cosmic
force that Jean absorbed. It destroyed their home world and is the key to restoring
it.
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| I think it's safe to say that it's damn near impossible to make a movie as awesome as this story. So maybe stop trying? |
While at a party that the X-Kids
are throwing, which Dazzler is singing at (what a weird cameo), things start
off fine but start to escalate as Jean’s powers begin to flare out of control.
At the same time, Raven is trying to convince Hank that the two of them should
go away for a while. To get away from Charles and missions for a while. Hank convinces
her to stay, just before they see Jean basically burst into flame. Jean’s
powers flare out of control, with extreme heat being fired off and her
telepathy cranked to twelve. It’s through this power flare that she’s able to
learn that her father is still alive. Furious that Charles kept that from her
all these years, Jean flees. Hank and Charles try to chase after her alone, but
the rest of the team convince them that they should come along.
In Red Hook, New York, Jean meets
her father again for the first time in close to twenty years. She reads his
mind and learns he willingly gave her up because he couldn’t handle raising her
after his wife was killed. This sends Jean into a fury, just as the team
arrive. Charles tries to talk her down, but Jean isn’t in a talking mood. The
rest of the X-Men attack, trying to subdue her long enough to try and suppress
the entity within her. Pietro gets rocked, all of his limbs are broken. And she’s
only slightly gentler with Kurt. Raven tries to talk her down, but a
power flare up causes Jean to knock her back and Fridge her… I mean, impale her
on a bit of debris. She flies off as the cops begin pulling up.
At the X-Mansion, they bury Raven.
Hank and Charles start fighting in the kitchen, Charles thinking Hank is just
lashing out from grief, and Hanks being certain and furious that Charles’ ego
got her killed. He leaves in a huff.
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| Really wish the movie was as cool as this poster. |
Jean flies out to Genosha, an island refugee
camp run by Magneto. She asks Erik how he controls his powers and his desire to
kill people that make him furious. Erik is suspicious about why Jean is there
asking about such things and whose blood is on her shirt, but does answer her.
Basically, the killing never made the pain go away, so he just tried to find other
ways to handle his grief and fury. They’re interrupted by a US military force
landing to arrest Jean. Jean tries to kill the crew, but Erik is able to save
them, before telling Jean to leave. She does, and is approached by Vuk a short
time later. Vuk takes her to her building in New York. She explains some of the
background of the Phoenix Force (No, I don’t think they ever said the name,),
how it’s the embodiment of destruction and creation, and how it destroyed the D’Bari
homeworld. No, I don’t think they ever said their species was called the D’Bari
either.
Meanwhile, Hank goes to Erik, tells
him what happened with Jean and the two agree to work together to kill Jean as vengeance
for Raven. They arrive at the same time as Xavier and his crew. A mutant brawl ensues
between Magneto’s team and the X-Men. Oh no, can Storm, Cyclops and Nightcrawler
defeat Beast and… evil telepath, and… Dreadlock whips? Somewhere, probably
Greece, Dominikos Petrakis aka Avalanche is fuming he wasn’t included in yet
another X-Men movie. Just saying.
While the fighting is going on Magneto
gets into the building and confronts Jean. He tries to kill her, but Jean’s
enhanced powers are too much for him, she even shatters his helmet into pieces.
Scott and Charles make it in in time to save Erik. Jean attacks them, but
Charles begs her to read his mind. Reading his mind and being reminded of the
better parts of her past allows Jean to reassert control over herself. She asks
Vuk to take the Phoenix Force away, which Vuk agrees, but it becomes clear pretty
quick the transfer will kill her. Vuk doesn’t stop and keeps drawing the
Phoenix Force out. Scott is able to eyebeam her away, just as some US soldiers
burst in and arrest them.
And because I’m reasonably sure
anyone who wants to see this movie has already, and this is the final Fox owned
X-Men movie, I’ll talk about the ending. Stop reading here if I’m wrong.
As the Mutants awaken, they’re being
taken by train to a containment facility. I swear, the US government never
works faster than to oppress Mutants (and other non-white guy groups). Charles
admits to a still furious Hank that he was wrong to have used his telepathy to
repress Jean’s powers without her knowledge. They seem to make up just in time
to fight off a D’Bari attack. While everyone else use their combined skills to
fight the D’Bari off, Scott and Charles try to get to Jean. Charles is able to get
to Jean and the two together are able to get her full control of her powers.
Jean gets up and decides to wreck the place. She protects her allies during the
train crash and then vaporize the D’Bari, which had proven to be nigh
impossible to kill at that point. Jean unleashes her full power and she and Vuk
are consumed in Phoenix Fire.
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| If this movie did only one thing right, it was making the Phoenix Power look really cool. |
In the aftermath, Charles Xavier’s
School for Gifted Youngsters is renamed the Jean Grey School for Gifted Youngsters.
It looks like the surviving team has recovered to one degree or another. Hank has
taken over as Dean. Charles, meanwhile, has retired to Paris. It’s there that
Erik meets up with him, and the two old friends play a game of chess. While a
giant Phoenix flies across the sky.
I want to stress that everyone in
this movie is trying their damnedest to make a good film. I don’t think any member
of the cast gave less then 110%. But, it’s just… really… average.
I will say, while they rehash a fair
amount of the Dark Phoenix stuff from X-Men: The Last Stand, they did a
massive improvement in giving Jean some agency. Instead of killing her beloved Scott,
and her mentor Xavier and then just following Magneto around, this Jean is
trying up until the very end to control herself. Way more interesting than just
having her be menacing. The D’Bari are a bit of a disappointment. Film makers,
if you don’t ever mention the NAME of your villains or even what species they
are, you need to go back and write that in. Come on. I know Jean is kind of the
villain here too, but if you’re going to have a secondary antagonist to take
over for your primary antagonist once she does a heel face turn, they have to
be just as interesting!
I think a major flaw of this movie
is that it happened too soon. Think about it. Jean was just introduced one
movie ago, as a minor character at best. We only saw a bit of who she was, and
most of that was in relation to being the girl Scott was instantly smitten
with. Not much to go on there. Actually, she seems to have the same issue as
Angel had in Apocalypse, in that the film makers seem to think that the
name was enough. That we, the fans would be drawn in by use of the Dark Phoenix
name. And, like with Warren, they were hopelessly wrong.
That all being said, I do like how
most of this ended. Sure, Mystique getting Fridged was a little disappointing,
but I wasn’t a fan of good-Mystique to begin with so I can’t force myself to
get worked up. Oh, right, I should explain. Fridged is a reference to Women in
Refrigerators. The trope earned its name during a Green Lantern storyline where
the girlfriend of the Lantern in question, Kyle Rayner, was brutally murdered
and stuffed into a fridge by villain Major Force. It’s a term most folks use when
a character, usually a female, is killed to enrage or otherwise motivate a
protagonist into acting. Mystique getting impaled to motivate Xavier, Hank and
Jean to one degree or another fits that description fairly well. So yeah, that
part isn’t good. But to see Hank take over as Dean of School and see Charles and
Erik in retirement, but neither of them being bitter about it does seem like a
fitting way to end this run of movies. Just saying.
This one gets a C. It’s not the
worst X-Men movie I’ve ever seen. That’s
still easily X-Men: Origins. But, unfortunately, the story felt really
phoned in. The acting talent of actors like Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy,
and Jennifer Lawrence isn’t enough to carry the film. I read somewhere that
they had changed the ending, as if felt too similar to Captain Marvel. I
hope that isn’t true, though, because that means that they decided that copying
the ending of Ang Lee’s The Hulk was a better bet. Such a shame. I hope that
Marvel has been watching the X-Men over the last few years. So that, when the
X-Men are introduced into the main MCU, their films will start good and end
good. And given Marvel studios track record, I think that’s a reasonably safe
bet.
I feel like I need to say that,
despite the ups and downs, I’ve overall enjoyed the Fox X-Men movies. These
were some of the first films to show that Marvel superheroes could be brought to
the big screen and be a smashing financial success. It’s the end of a founding
era, and a part of me is sad to see it go. But hopeful for what is to come
next. Have a good one.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/27881969
Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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