X-Men: Dark Phoenix (June 7, 2019) (1 Viewer)

[steve jaros]

I saw Dark Phoenix today (in LiMAX) and, given the poor reviews and low box office expectations in the media, was very pleasantly surprised. The movie is fast-paced, easy to understand, treats its characters with respect, and has some great action and SFX sequences. Macavoy is fine as Xavier, Fassbender suitable as a young Ian Mckellen (LOL), and we get Chastain, Lawrence, and Turner in various roles. Sophie in particular shines as the star character, she is gorgeous and her face easily withstands the numerous tight closeups. The IMAX sound system was very well employed.

I enjoyed this film way more than I liked Aquaman or Godzilla. Not quite up there with Captain Marvel, but not far from it either. And it doesn't overstay its welcome.

My verdict is ignore the Rotten Tomatoes critics and other naysayers who whine about all the ways it deviates from or isn't as good as this or that X-men movie of the past 20 years, and go see it. It's worth it.

703/1000

 

[Wayne_j]

I just got back from seeing this at my local arthouse theater. Good first act, OK third act, and a terrible second act leads me to give the film a D+ overall. Not worse than Apocalypse but not far from being that bad.

Trailers started playing without sound. I got up and complained and they restarted the trailers with sound within a minute. Presentation was fine for the rest of the movie.

 

[Patrick Sun]

I saw this on Thursday night. I can barely remember anything memorable from it.

 

[Dave Scarpa]

If that % holds, that means Dark Phoenix is worse than Apocalypse, X-Men Origins and The Last Stand.

Catwoman's 9% is within spitting distance, as is Elektra and Superman IV's 11%.

I'm gonna be highly amused to see this on Thursday night...highly highly amused. I've always known it's going to be a dumpster fire, but I didn't quite image anything as bad as the current RT suggests.

i watched Apocalypse for about a half hour and switched it off could'nt get thru it

 

[Sam Favate]

I wanted to see this over the weekend, but I just couldn't get to it. If I can, I will squeeze in a matinee this week, otherwise I'll be waiting for blu-ray. (BTW, the listing for Dark Phoenix on Amazon says it is "coming this summer to blu-ray."

Here's a really good article that popped up in my Facebook feed this morning.

Why Fox's X-Men Movies Keep Failing the Dark Phoenix Saga


https://www.cbr.com/why-fox-keeps-f...LUdkXVub9CqLQT0Xf7AhAPxAuyHejoH-5yN29UNG1XBnM

 

[TJPC]

It was a matter of pride, when I was a comic book reader for this old DC guy that I never read Marvel comics, so I have no vested interests in the characters at all.

I have seen and collected every one of both the x men and Avengers series and thoroughly enjoyed them all. We just returned from “Dark Phoenix”. We enjoyed it like all the rest and I can’t really see anything wrong with it at all.

One thing puzzles me about all X Men movies. What is the continuity? Wasn’t Jean Gray alive and didn’t she die in another one of these? Is there an order to play them so they make chronological sense? Are we dealing with time travel, //time lines, or is it “Pulp Fictionified”?

 

[ScottRE]

Saw the film yesterday and enjoyed it for the most part. I was expecting nothing and walked out liking it a lot more than Apocalypse. The effects were amazing - the space stuff, the awesome Quicksilver "running over debris" bit, the stand up and the "holy SHIT" subway moment by Magneto.

I do agree that we haven't spent enough time with Jean and Scott to really be emotionally invested in her. The aliens were underdeveloped. Jennifer Lawrence was cranky AF and her last scene was probably stipulated in her contract.

I am convinced DOFP created a new timeline that pulled these films away from the previous. That's the only way to explain all of this happening earlier than it does. This film needed to either be two parts, an hour longer or whatever. I feel like we missed the movie leading up to this. Apocalypse didn't feature Scott and Jean enough to make this land.

I did like the X-Men accepted as legit super heroes with the president having an actual, literal X-Phone like Batman. Their fall from grace, though, was not resolved.

Nightcrawler pushed to murderous fury was fantastic! He tried to hard to save that guy. The cast was great. But the script was meh,

. Instead, we're told that Xavier basically screwed up Jean when they first met; that puts the entire movie into motion. Without that one act by Xavier, the movie doesn't happen the way it's laid out. I get the allegory, but it was based on a lie he told her. I'm not okay with that.

This is - EXACTLY - what happened with The Last Stand. We blamed Brett Ratner, but it's obviously Kinberg. He totally ignored the set up of the previous film and instead went with this hidden personality or hidden something by Charles, again making him the villain.

Note to Simon Kinberg; if you're going into a film planning to redo it and make up for a previous version, actually make it different.

The score by Hans Zimmer is good. As good as Inception, Dunkirk and Angels and Demons, since he referenced them pretty heavily. Zimmer on Auto Pilot. I missed John Ottman's X-Men theme....

 

[Wayne_j]

One thing puzzles me about all X Men movies. What is the continuity? Wasn’t Jean Gray alive and didn’t she die in another one of these? Is there an order to play them so they make chronological sense? Are we dealing with time travel, //time lines, or is it “Pulp Fictionified”?

Professional youtuber John Campea has a saying when it comes to FOX's approach to continuity in the X-Men movies. "Continuity Schmontinuity".

 

[David Weicker]

It was a matter of pride, when I was a comic book reader for this old DC guy that I never read Marvel comics, so I have no vested interests in the characters at all.

I have seen and collected every one of both the x men and Avengers series and thoroughly enjoyed them all. We just returned from “Dark Phoenix”. We enjoyed it like all the rest and I can’t really see anything wrong with it at all.

One thing puzzles me about all X Men movies. What is the continuity? Wasn’t Jean Gray alive and didn’t she die in another one of these? Is there an order to play them so they make chronological sense? Are we dealing with time travel, //time lines, or is it “Pulp Fictionified”?

Continuity is difficult in the X-Men movies.

Here is my take.

X1, X2, and X3 Jean is shown as an adult, played by Famke Jannsen.
In X3, she becomes a version of the Dark Phoenix, and dies,
In XMen Days Of Future Past, Wolverine changes the past, and X3 never happens, Famke is back as Jean (either seen or implied) sometime after the time of Dark Phoenix
In Dark Phoenix, young Jean is played by Sophie Turner, becomes a different version of the Dark Phoenix and dies.

However, in the comics, after Jean/Dark Phoenix dies, she is brought back (it wasn’t really Jean, it was a duplicate).

So potentially, the Adult Jean at the end of DOFP is the ‘brought back’ Jean

 

[dpippel]

 

[ScottRE]

How about explaining how 30 years goes by from First Class to Dark Phoenix and nobody looks all that much older? Shouldn't Charles look like Patrick Stewart at the end of Star Trek The Next Generation by now...? This "Every ten years" thing worked for Days of Future Past to show how the passage of time caused a schism between Erik and Charles, killed a ton of mutants and made them feared, but after that, it was totally an unnecessary and ridiculous conceit.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I'm going to see this again in 3-D this week as one of my A-List selections at my local AMC theater.

 

[Jake Lipson]

How about explaining how 30 years goes by from First Class to Dark Phoenix and nobody looks all that much older? Shouldn't Charles look like Patrick Stewart at the end of Star Trek The Next Generation by now...?

That's easy. It's only been eight years since First Class was released, and maybe nine years since it was made, so in reality nobody would look all that much older. If they were going to continue the decade-hoping gimmick after Days of Future Past, they really ought to have aged the cast with makeup or CG or some combination of the two, but they decided not to out of laziness. It can't be budget constraints because these movies have enough money to do that if they wanted to.

 

[dpippel]

AND, how did Jean manage to unleash the Phoenix Force at the end of Apocalypse, the events of which occurred BEFORE this film???

 

[David Weicker]

Well, in the comics we got to deal with
Jean Grey and Madeleine Pryor
then
Rachel Summers and Nathan Summers/Cable and Nate Grey and Stryfe

That was real fun

 

[MishaLauenstein]

I saw this on Thursday night. I can barely remember anything memorable from it.

Don't you remember Jennifer Lawrence's character using her amazing powers to turn herself into a white girl? A few times.

 

[Patrick H.]

Out of morbid curiosity I saw this last night in 3D and, in spite of the strong outer-space opening, was dumbfounded just how much it (literally) went off the rails. For something with lofty ambitions that cost hundreds of millions of dollars, it felt cheap and painfully obligatory. It had no idea where it fit in the continuity of the rest of the franchise, and what should be huge events all take place on front lawns, in hotel lobbies, cramped train cars, out in abandoned scrapyards. The grim shift in tone from the Singer installments is jarring, and while I know they reshot the ending to avoid duplicating Captain Marvel, I'm not sure why they bothered because the rest of the movie still ripped off everything from previous films in the franchise to the likes of the Eric Bana Hulk. Indeed, the ending duplicates The Dark Knight Rises right down to the Hans Zimmer score. I do hope Jessica Chastain was well-paid for this, because the alien villains she fronted were the most one-note antagonists imaginable. The sole thing I did find interesting was how the story maneuvered Magneto to become its moral center (Fassbender is still great), especially after he killed whole continents of people in the last one.

Speaking of which, tired though it was, Apocalypse did better by Jean Grey in its last ten minutes than this whole movie. Just a real sad note for this flagship series to end on.

 

[ScottRE]

That's easy. It's only been eight years since First Class was released, and maybe nine years since it was made, so in reality nobody would look all that much older.

Well, obviously I know why the actors aren't 30 years older.

If they were going to continue the decade-hoping gimmick after Days of Future Past, they really ought to have aged the cast with makeup or CG or some combination of the two, but they decided not to out of laziness. It can't be budget constraints because these movies have enough money to do that if they wanted to.

That's the point. After DOFP, they could - and arguably should - have just left the series in "real time" going forward - just a year or two separating each film. I mean, has Quicksilver ever told Magneto that they're father and son? The time period has NO bearing on the storylines. Dark Phoenix could have taken place in the late 70's just as easily. The comic did.

 

[ScottRE]

AND, how did Jean manage to unleash the Phoenix Force at the end of Apocalypse, the events of which occurred BEFORE this film???

That's my issue with these Dark Phoenix films: they always totally ignore the set ups of the previous films. The Last Stand didn't follow through with the incident at Liberty Island boosting Jean's power, instead going with the repressed personality bullshiznit.

 

[Jason_V]

This is - EXACTLY - what happened with The Last Stand. We blamed Brett Ratner, but it's obviously Kinberg. He totally ignored the set up of the previous film and instead went with this hidden personality or hidden something by Charles, again making him the villain.

Note to Simon Kinberg; if you're going into a film planning to redo it and make up for a previous version, actually make it different.

Eh, I'm still happy to give Ratner his share of the blame.

Kinberg has been involved with good movies in the past, so I don't know who the actual blame should go with for Dark Phoenix: him or Fox or nobody really caring about this movie in the Fox offices.

Continuity is difficult in the X-Men movies.

Here is my take.

X1, X2, and X3 Jean is shown as an adult, played by Famke Jannsen.
In X3, she becomes a version of the Dark Phoenix, and dies,
In XMen Days Of Future Past, Wolverine changes the past, and X3 never happens, Famke is back as Jean (either seen or implied) sometime after the time of Dark Phoenix
In Dark Phoenix, young Jean is played by Sophie Turner, becomes a different version of the Dark Phoenix and dies.

However, in the comics, after Jean/Dark Phoenix dies, she is brought back (it wasn’t really Jean, it was a duplicate).

So potentially, the Adult Jean at the end of DOFP is the ‘brought back’ Jean

That makes my head hurt, honestly. If that's what happened, so be it. But it would be nice for either Apocalypse or Dark Phoenix to actually say it. As it is, the same actors are playing the same characters in most of these movies and they don't align in any way.