X-Men: Dark Phoenix | Film Review

Hey Guys x

I waited so long to watch this film that I wasn't going to write a review on it. However, after the first 10/15 minutes, I decided to write a review, because there's a bit that I want to say. And I guess I owe it to my love of the X-Men series to review the last one.

During a rescue mission, Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) is struck by a blast of energy that changes her, and the rest of the X-Men, in ways they couldn't have imagined.

For the most part, I did enjoy this film, particularly in the first half.

The problem with prequels is that you already know the eventual fate of these characters, so there are no real stakes. And the fact that this is the fourth X-Men prequel just makes that even more apparent. It suffered because we know too much about the future of these characters.

However, even from the beginning, we know that this is a much better story than 'Apocalypse' - which wasn't awful, but the story wasn't as tight as it could have been. Whether we have already seen this story or not, it was coherent, it made sense, and it was a good direction for the prequel series to go in.

Having said this, I found that after *spoiler* dies, the film starts to go downhill and becomes a lot more bland and generic, when they could have really tried to move things further away from what we've already seen in other movies.

None of the characters get any particularly good development. In fact, while the majority of the characters don't develop at all, I found that Jean Grey and Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) developed backwards, and became much worse characters than they had been in previous films. This was particularly true of Charles, who for me was the beating heart of the prequel series, and in this film just completely changed.

Speaking of characters, the new character introduced in this film is our villain, Vuk, played by Jessica Chastain. In my opinion, this film didn't need a villain. The moral ambiguity of Jean Grey was a strong enough story-line on its own without bringing in something completely new that didn't really add that much to the plot. 

At times, it felt like the film was trying to tell two stories, but when it focused on one, it would completely forget about the other.

For me, what stood out about the film was the fight scenes. They were cool and imaginative, and they reminded me of why I initially fell in love with the X-Men series. Even when they felt a bit pointless in terms of the story towards the end, they were still amazing to watch.

And the other thing that stood out for me - both Summer Fontana and Sophie Turner did an amazing job with Jean Grey. I can't imagine she's an easy character to play, but they both played her really well. 

The film ends in a place that doesn't make sense when compared to the later (or earlier, depending on how you look at it) X-Men movies. It made me wonder whether the future that the audience already knows was thought about in the making of this one. Was it supposed to be canon, or not?

Overall, I found this film to be really enjoyable, if slightly bland in parts. But I'd definitely recommend watching it, particularly if you're an X-Men fan who hasn't gotten around to it yet.

6/10

Lou