Director: Simon Kinberg
Genre: Action, Sci-Fi
Runtime: 113 Minutes
Main Cast: Sophie Turner, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Evan Peters, Tye Sheridan, Jessica Chastain, Alexandra Shipp, Kodi Smit-McPhee
Plot: During a mission to save some of NASA’s astronauts, Jean Gray obtains unimaginable powers that she can’t control, and they corrupt her. The remaining X-Men are left to decide whether she can be saved before she becomes too much of a threat to humanity.
My Thoughts: It’s not that I’ve been actively avoiding the X-Men movies, I’ve just never had that much of an interest in them. I’ve missed a few, and I know nothing about the timeline or most of the mutants powers, so when I watch one of the movies I feel like an elderly person who’s just been handed an iPad. Lost! That said, when the internet hails a movie as being awful, my morbid curiosity kicks in, so I had to find out for myself if Dark Phoenix is as bad as the critics say.
I’ll cut straight to the chase – it isn’t. It’s not a great movie, it has a lot of flaws, but it’s far from being a disaster. I mean, I was entertained the whole time and that’s all you can ask for sometimes. The trailer was quite misleading, I thought most of the movie would be filled with action scenes of the different mutants trying to take down Jean Gray while she kicked their asses, but those kind of scenes were far and few between.
What stood out the most to me was the dialogue. Who wrote it?! It felt like it had either been dumbed down for the audience or just lazily done…by a 10-year old. Regardless, I still enjoyed the movie, and I liked the ending. It felt like it wrapped up the story for these characters but set up an opportunity for some new movies. Hopefully, those ones will be received better!
Best Bit: The best scene without a doubt was the fight outside Jean Gray’s family home. The slo-mo bits are just too cool. I really fell in love with Nightcrawler though – he’s adorable! Poor guy was nothing more than a mutant Uber during half the movie but he got his chance to kick some ass towards the end.
Worst Bit: Never did I ever think my complaints would include Michael Fassbender but…he pulled the subway train up out of the ground…and used it to make a fancy entrance into that house?! Is that honestly all he wanted to do with it?!
Fun Trivia: At the end of the movie, Professor Xavier and Magneto meet for a chess game at a Parisian cafe named “Les Vieux Copains” meaning “Old buddies”, apparently located on the “Rue de la Paix” literally the “street of Peace”.
My Rating: 3 ripe, juicy tomatoes, grown lovingly on Magneto’s farm.
Interesting, I keep hearing bad reviews, so yours put my mind at ease. I was going to wait for it to show up online, but I might go see it in cinemas. Thanks!
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I wouldn’t say it’s worth rushing out to see, but it really isn’t anywhere near as bad as the critics are saying!
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Oh God that photo from the scene where they are manipulating that helicopter, I laughed so hard at this nonsense 😂
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It looks like a terrible attempt at the Macarena!
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The train bit was so over the top I laughed! All I could think was like what a diva. Jean was probably wondering what was taking him so long 😉
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I was just sat there, waiting, thinking what on earth is he going to do with this train?!
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I’m going to wait for it on TV though I’m gonna see is it as bad as The Last Stand? Surely, it can’t be worse than…. ugh…. X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
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The Last Stand is one of the ones I’ve missed! It’s definitely better than Origins though…ugh.
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Origins is a film I never want to see again as I watched it hoping for something decent as I love the Wolverine character. Instead, I got something far worse as it did tell me that any film with Skip Woods’ name in the writing credits is something to avoid.
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I didn’t see it as bad as critics said as well, but for the whole duration I kept thinking about “where’s the big spectacles?” and finally found none. The spectacles were okay, carefully and creatively made; but, back then, they made some even bigger spectacles.
Nice write up anyway!
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Exactly! It was missing that big ‘wow’ moment 😦
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I don’t think the X-Men movies even understand their own time line. These people don’t age lol. I’ve just been really disappointed with what the X-Men films have been doing so I definitely won’t watch this unless it’s the HBO movie of the week or something. It’s a shame, because I normally really adore X-Men, but I’m done. lol
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I don’t blame you! I’ve never really made much of an effort to keep up with the story. I’ve enjoyed the movies I’ve seen but they’re far from great.
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I think people’s expectations of this were just too high–it looks like something fun and entertaining–can’t be any worse than Captain Marvel!
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Oooh controversial! It was entertaining for sure but I really enjoyed Captain Marvel 🙂
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