Dark Phoenix Film Review

There is something that both this sort of rebooted sort of prequel timeline and the original X-Men films timeline both have in common. That being the fact that they both produced movies that have terrible versions of the truly iconic Phoenix Saga with both this film and X-Men: The Last Stand condensing what should have been an entire trilogy with of films into one film and so then join me as I review the film that is to date the last film to feature the X-Men team with the film in question being called simply just "Dark Phoenix" enjoy.

The plot of this film is when Jean is hit by cosmic rays her mutation starts to mutate and with her growing more and more out of control by the second the X-Men have to come together to find away to not only bring her back but also stop an alien from trying to take over the world. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about thew actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty really bad as while the idea of the X-Men having to deal with what is basically two threats at once is a really good idea it's handled so poorly in this film as the plot of this film is one that should have been handled much more better then what it was previously as this is a story that should have been told over three films much like how the recent Wicked films were told over two films as to do a story that's this deep and that's this rich in one singular film just does a huge disservice to the story as on paper this is a story that should have worked as it has all of the right materials needed for it to work but because of the fact that the makers of this film are trying to condense an entire saga into one film and give the X-Men another threat on top of that it does make it feel like that the film is trying to do to much and because of that things like the films plot does suffer as the makers of this film don't give the plot a whole lot of focus with them being more interested in giving Jennifer Lawrence a cringy X-Women line of dialog then it is in telling a really good story when this is the story that should have been the easiest to make good in the first place with the plot of this film not really being really rather entertaining and as well as being not really rather engaging either in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

Starring in this film is James McAvoy as Professor Charles Xavier and Michael Fassbender as Erik Lehnsherr / Magneto. Also starring in this film is Jennifer Lawrence as Raven Darkholme / Mystique , Nicholas Hoult as Hank McCoy / Beast , Sophie Turner as Jean Grey / Phoenix , Tye Sheridan as Scott Summers / Cyclops , Alexandra Shipp as Ororo Munroe / Storm , Evan Peters as Peter Maximoff / Quicksilver , Kodi Smit-McPhee as Kurt Wagner / Nightcrawler , Scott Shepherd as John Grey , Ato Essandoh as Jones , Brian d'Arcy James as The President Of The United States and Jessica Chastain as Vuk / Margaret Smith.

Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty really good. As all of this films actors do indeed turn in some really good performances something which isn't all that shocking as not only is this film made up of a bunch of really good actors but also alot of of this films actors are reprising their roles from previous X-Men movies and would therefor know how best to perform there respective character due to the fact that they've had the experience of playing them for a few years now and while alot of this films characters are perfectly well cast with the likes of Quicksilver being a prime example of that alot of these characters have been done better in the original X-Men movies as those movies felt like they were trying to get the characters right whereas in this film it feels like everything from an acting point of view is taking a backseat to the films lame attempt of telling this story and while these versions of the characters might be the most well known versions for kids of today with the same thing being true for the acting there are other X-Men films that had better acting whilst also using the same character in them as well with the best actor in the film being Sophie Turner as Jean Grey / Phoenix as she does really capture what the character is going through and does her best to make you believe that what the character is real as well with the acting that's in this film not really being helped by the fact that this films script is just so bad as it gives none of this films actors absolutely nothing to work with interms of what it is that there respective characters personalities are even meant to be in the first place which is something that really does harm the overall quality of the acting that's in this very film.

Doing the CGI for this film is Moving Picture Company , Soho VFX , Scanline VFX , Rising Sun Pictures , Rodeo FX and MELS. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual CGI that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual CGI that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty really good with this mainly due to the fact that there alot of really good effects companies working on the film with them all getting to show just what it is that they can do however the film does rely a bit to much on CGI which granted is kind on inevitable when it comes to this franchise as the X-Men films are always going to require alot of CGI to make them work but at the same time tho alot of the previous X-Men movies also had a lot of practical effects in them to help ground the CGI in some sort of reality and that's something that's not here in this film as really the only practical effect in the film seems to be Beast and that's it and while this films CGI is really good with there not being a bad effect in the whole entire film all of it's effects do look dated when compared to the films practical effects with this being due to the fact that the CGI does age alot more faster then practical effects do with there being alot of scenes in this film that could have been practically but where instead done in a computer and while that's not a bad thing it's also not a good thing either as a well done practical effect like Beast will always look better then the scene where Jean is absorbing the solar-flare at the start of the film.

As has been stated quite a few times early on in this review this is a film that should have been told over the course of a trilogy of films instead of just the one. With the first film ending with the Phoenix awakening inside of Jean with her choosing to keep it a secret from the team something which would have made sense for this version of the character with the second film then being Jean being unable to control it and being forced to leave the team through fear that she might kill then with her turning evil in the process and then the third film deals with the team trying to kill her as that's the only way to stop her this is something that makes more sense then trying to tell this whole saga in one film as part of what makes a saga work isn't just the big moments altho they do help out alot it's the smaller character driven moments as well and those are things that do get lost in this film as the film has to rush through several dozen comic books worth of storytelling with a solid of example of this being Vuk who here in this film only has the most generic plan that a villain could have in that she wants to take over the world and while it's hard for me to say if the comic book goes into deeper detail with her character it surely has to just due to the fact that the comic book has more time to fully justify her character being in the story in the first place with it being pointless to have her character appear in this film as this film should have gone all the way and made Jean Grey the main villain of the film as the Phoenix saga is meant to ultimately be a tragedy and what better way to do that then to have a hero fall to the dark side as it were and have her team be put into a position where the only way to save her live is to kill her hopefully Marvel Studios can now do this saga justice as the two attempts made by Fox have resulted in some of the worst X-Men films of all time.

This timeline of X-Men films was one that started out as a prequel to the original films and yet somewhere along the way the makers of these films forgot that. As now in this film we have two characters that are alive and well in the original X-Men films be dead and buried those of course being Jean Grey and Mystique while you can understand why certain members of this films team aren't in the original like Quicksilver for example as you could argue that they either left the team before the events of the 2000's movie or were killed both of which would make sense what doesn't make sense is explaining how a character who is killed of in this film is now alive and well at the start of the original as these films did start out as prequels to the original films with being something that the makers of this film should have thought about when they coming up with the ending for this film and yet because they didn't it now means that Mystique ends up being killed of in a really anti-climatic way and Jean Grey ends up sacrificing herself for the team and having the school now being named after her which just feels like a slap to the face to Charles but tho this film was originally meant to be followed up by two unnamed sequels which have tied things together so maybe the timeline would have corrected itself by the end of that second film but the makers of this film shouldn't have put all of their eggs in one basket as they never got to make those two films due to reasons the first of which was Disney buying Fox and the second of which being the fact that this film was a bomb at the box office which does mean that we are left with a timeline that now makes no sense when it comes to these movies.

Rightfully so this film does give us alot of backstory on Jean which is something that does make sense as she's mean to be the films main character. With the film showing us her connection to Charles and how close of a bond that the two of them share however the film almost goes out of it's way to make Charles appear to be the bad guy in this film as all he did was make sure that she couldn't use or have memory of a power that she wouldn't be able to control it could tho be argued that if Charles had given instruction on how to control that power in the first place then the events of this film wouldn't have happened but it could also be argued that Jean still would have killed people when learning how to control that power in the first place and while Charles should get some of the blame for what happens in this film as it's him that does tell Jean to go into the spaceship mere minuets before the solar-flare is about to hit it but that doesn't make him a bad guy as he doesn't know how close the spaceship is to the solar-flare i the first place as no one tells him that and while Charles can be a bit reckless at times his heart is always in the right place with him being a father figure to all of his students Jean included and yet the film expects us to cheer Mystique for calling Charles out for what he does when in the original films she does things that are far more worse and heck she even did things in Days Of Future Past that are far worse then what Charles does in this film but with this being said it is sweet seeing him care for Jean with him even personally leading the charge to go and find her and being there in the field to confront her and Vuk himself something which he didn't have to do and yet its something that does show you how much he cared for Jean and thought of her as his daughter.

Now then this film has / had an exact grand total running time of exactly one hour and fifty three minuets and fifty six seconds. Which to be fair to this film is a pretty decent running time for this film with alot of the other X-Men films having a very similar amount of running time to them as well with this film even having more then enough there interms of plot to really cover that amount of running time however tho this film really doesn't or can't use it's running time all that wisely as it's condensing an entire saga into film that's well under two hours long and because of that the films plot can't be that well developed as the film has to rush along from plot point to plot point just to match what was done in the comics and because of that this films plot can't be that well developed and yet if the film was a trilogy then it would allow for that plot development to happen due to the fact that it's a story that's now being told over three films and not just the one and heck the film can't even fully develop all of it's characters all that well either with Jeans turn to the dark side seemingly coming out of nowhere when this is something that should have been built more due to the fact that it's an actual plot point and while it could be argued that alot of the characters get there character development in the other films characters like Jean , Vuk , Charles and Mystique really should have gotten there's in this film due to the fact that they are main characters in this film and yet all of this films characters nothing interms of character development but i really will admit that this film really does have some really good pacing to it tho.

So now then as this is an action film that really does mean that I have to actually talk about the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty really good. With this films action being the best of the film as you can tell that the makers of this film did put alot more thought and effort into this film action then they did quite literally anything else in this film as it's in this films action that we get to see just how much fun that this film really could have been but for whatever reason this film doesn't want to be fun film and instead more focused on being quite depressing which does make sense but also this is a comic book therefor can be more fun in a serious plot with the best action scene in the whole entire film being the attack on a mansion in New York where essentially two different faction do battle to try and get to Jean all the while she and Vuk are inside the house causing their own mayhem with the action even reaching inside the house as well as Jean forces Charles to do the one thing that he can't do to reach her and that's walk with the visual of him being forced to walk to her being a really creative and creepy visual and while the action doesn't stop there as it could be argued that it continues when the characters are on the train which is a really cool action scene in it's own it's the one that's in and around the house that's the better one as that's the one that has alot of plot to it as it's there that we see Jean turn back into being a hero again and yet the film having alot of really fun and creative action scenes in it something which is to be expected from all of the X-Men films and yet it's still something that works really well in this film in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. 

Overall it really is hard to say just which film did this saga better as both this film and The Last Stand are really bad films but this film does at least try to be a good film as you can tell that the makers did care about these characters and were trying to make a good film in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then i've talked about all of the good and as well as all of the bad this that are in this very film in this very review and as such that really does mean that this very film really does earn itself a grand old score of exactly a 3.5 out of 10 from me.

Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review well then boys and girls and as well as ladies and gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review from IMP Awards . Com and Google Images. With my personally preferred website to use to get images really from this very film being the really great Google Images this is really because of the fact that really all of the images that I really indeed got and really used from Google Images are all really high quality really with all of the images that really are all and of course really currently up and on the really great and the really solid Google Images really are all being really fairly high in quality and as well as them all really being fairly high in definition.