While many of you would rate it much lower, a comic book lover who has read X-Men and understand the concept of “alternate universe” would not complain much about it and actually enjoy what the movie has to offer.
That said, I would also like to point out that the above is just 20% of the audience and rest 80% will hate it and try to make to much of it.
Keeping these two points in mind, I will write this movie from both point of view and will give both pro and cons of the movie.
Pro:
* The movie holds an individual storyline and you don’t need to see the previous movies to see this version of X-men.
* While making it’s own adaption to adjust to movie format, Dark Phoenix as closer to comic books than other X Men movies.
* Sophie Turner as teen Jean Grey is more in line with comic book Jean Grey (on the drawing board front and character wise) than Famke Beumer Janssen ever was.
Thus, Sophie was perfect choice to play Jean who is strong female character in the X-Men series. It’s also hardly surprising, Sophie went from playing one powerful female character in a beloved pop culture franchise to another. (Sansa is equally strong character and Sophie grew into that role naturally over the years. )
* The story is not bad from PoV of new viewers who don’t follow Marvel or X-Men and just want to see this movie on it’s own.
* The movie franchise finally explains the Jean Grey mystery, which almost all the movies (Fox or MCU) have avoided since the year 2000.
Cons
* If you follow Marvel and X-Men only via the movie franchise, this might just seem baffling to you as many things go unexplained and out the window.
* The movie is end of an era (X Men dark Phoenix era) but not a satisfactory one. Many will still crave for an answer and will actually have to do a background check on Jean Grey’s comic book character to be able to make sense of things.
* While I don’t want to make a GoT connection again but you can’t help but feel that Jean has been made the Daenerys Targaryen of the X-Men franchise as many don’t understand her transformation from an hero to an anti-hero. The movie does not give a satisfactory answer to how the Phoenix is influencing Jean and you just have to take the writer’s word for it. The book gives much more details than this movie and in this movie you never get to know that Phoenix is it’s own being and Jean is just a host for her. Thus, you never get to know Phoenix as a character.
* The series loses it’s plot and edge in Fox-Marvel transfer. While Fox gave us memorable (Professor X, Magneto and Wolverine) for X Men, Marvel follow up of younger X Men (Storm, Raven, Jean Grey and Quicksilver) has been amazing. Unfortunately, with Fox folding up and Marvel taking over the X Men franchise took a hit and it was not for the best. Hopefully, Marvel will not kill this franchise as a whole and bring is back better as separate storyline. (X men Evolution)
* Much less/ no jokes – The whole movie lacks that punch line jokes that Marvel is famous for. Quicksilver is perfect for it, yet, he has not been given that much screen time in this movie.
As for my overall verdict, I will give X-Men – Dark Phoenix 3.5 out of 5. Which includes .5 extra for Turner as she has done an excellent job as Jean Grey and worked well with whatever script she has been given.
The movie has a huge potential in it’s cast (teen X Men) hopefully Marvel will bring all of them back in one for of the other. Besides Turner, Alexandra Shipp as Storm, Evan Peters’ Quicksilver, Ellen Page as Kitty Pryde and Jennifer Lawrence as Raven have done excellent job in whatever small parts they have been give. They each need to be given their own story and movie and kept alive in MCU and given their own movies. Only request, please keep JLaw as Mystique and not as Raven. The character is loved as a villan and JLaw was never give that chance in this series, the character and actor needs be used much better.
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