{"id":90321,"date":"2019-06-08T16:25:27","date_gmt":"2019-06-08T20:25:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gayfriendschat.com\/socialblog\/weekend-movie-review-dark-phoenix\/"},"modified":"2019-06-08T16:25:27","modified_gmt":"2019-06-08T20:25:27","slug":"weekend-movie-review-dark-phoenix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gayfriendschat.com\/socialblog\/weekend-movie-review-dark-phoenix\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekend Movie Review: \u2018Dark Phoenix\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Weekend Movie Review: \u2018Dark Phoenix\u2019<\/b><\/p>\n

Phoenix (Sophie Turner) can\u2019t deal with compounding disappointments of the X-franchise<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Don\u2019t they have any healing and creative rejuvenation among the super-powered mutations at Charles Xavier\u2019s School for Gifted Children? If so, they needed them to lay their hands on this franchise for a few years before making another bungled attempt at the beloved Dark Phoenix storyline (from the 1980 comic books). But that\u2019s a rhetorical question. If Dark Phoenix<\/em> (2019) is any indication, mutations cannot save this franchise.<\/p>\n

When we return to our characters, much has changed since the last visit. Which is fine since who wants to be reminded of X-Men Apocalypse<\/em>? The X-Men are now no longer shunned by society but held up as heroes. Professor Xavier (James McAvoy, phoning this one in\u2026 but then who isn\u2019t?) has a direct phone to the White House, like a Batman \/ Commissioner Gordon sitch gone national. <\/p>\n

Matchy-matchy costumes for better PR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Their first mission, which serves as kind of a second prologue to the over and underwritten film, involves saving a space shuttle crew from imminent death. For underwritten\/performed reason this is making Raven (Jessica Lawrence) nervous. The mission goes wrong with Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) appearing to explode with the doomed ship. But what\u2019s this \u2014 she feels great with not a scratch on her? Well, not so fast. Her power is now off the charts and mental inhibitors that Xavier had placed on her as a child without her knowledge (uh-oh) have distintegrated as well. Her powers going haywire is bad enough for the team, but things get worse when super-powered mysterious aliens arrive on Earth (led by Jessica Chastain, going\u00a0Terminator<\/em>-franchise minimalist though she\u2019s not playing a robot). The aliens intend to use Jean Grey, now nicknamed Phoenix for her remarkable resurrection, for their own nefarious purposes.<\/p>\n

Battle sequences, plot contrivances, contractually obligated and completely joyless performances follow\u2026<\/p>\n

Quicksilver vs Phoenix. Everyone gets a turn against her. Guess who wins?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To be fair, Dark Phoenix<\/em>\u00a0does deliver a few meager thrills. The film makes you wait for Magneto and it\u2019s wonderful to see Michael Fassbender\u2019s effortlessly intense charisma back onscreen (where\u2019s he been since marrying Alicia Vikander? That\u2019s a long honeymoon). He clearly doesn\u2019t want to be there, but then, neither does his character so it works. Disco-era mutant Dazzler gets a cameo which is irrelevant to the plot but still works as fan service (we never thought we\u2019d see her onscreen!). Nightcrawler\u2019s (Kodi Smit McPhee) teleportation skills are put to visually strong use, primarily because they look so different than everyone else\u2019s computer generated gifts. A climactic action sequence on a speeding train goes on twice as long as it should and is too chaotic to follow well but it has two action-bliss jolts within if you\u2019re patient about waiting for them.<\/p>\n

What doesn\u2019t work? Everything else.<\/p>\n

Sophie Turner and Jessica Chastain briefly unite but to what end?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The franchise has never done right by Cyclops (Tye Sheridan now, James Marsden earlier) or Storm (Alexandra Shipp now, Halle Berry then) and that continues here, with no effort to course correct.\u00a0[SPOILER]\u00a0<\/strong>And for a story that should feel apocalyptically large on an existential level, there is only one major death, and that one plays like it\u2019s appeasing someone who was chafing against their endless contract.\u00a0[\/SPOILER]<\/strong> Stranger still given the budgets on superhero movies, it\u2019s visually \u201csmall,\u201d as if the X-Men and the aliens are the only people who exist in the known universe. One action sequence takes place in the suburbs but nobody appears to be at home. Another takes place in a single block of a city but feels no bigger than an unruly block party. Someone called the cops.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all terribly unsatisfying.<\/p>\n

Sophie Turner does what she can with her undermotivated central part, but there\u2019s no magic in the performance to save the movie from itself. The X-Men movies originally leaned hard into allegory \u201cmutants = persecuted minorities. Hatred is bad!\u201d but this one barely knows what to do with something that should be easily resonant and message-movie flexible like losing control of your body or giving yourself over to rage.<\/p>\n

Michael Fassbender, werking a metal collar.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The other actors have much less to do, only repeating beats we\u2019ve seen them do multiple times before. The franchise is in a time loop after all, returning to this story again with different actors playing the same roles, but not, through the usual reboot format. It\u2019s little wonder that everyone is merely going through the motions between \u201caction\u201d and \u201ccut\u201d.<\/p>\n

We repeat: Mutations cannot save the\u00a0X-Men<\/em>. No half-measure cast changes or director swaps will do. Dark Phoenix<\/em> is not, perhaps, the worst movie in the franchise, just the dullest. But when more movies from a franchise are fighting for Worst Of<\/em> honors than Best Of<\/em>, it\u2019s time to bury it.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s their funeral since Disney bought Fox, so this is the last non Marvel Studios, X-Men movies<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0Logan <\/em>knew that, somehow, and went to the grave honorably.\u00a0Dark Phoenix<\/em>\u00a0tries to follow suit, in its own funereal way, but without that earlier film\u2019s conviction, genre-twisting, and fine performances.\u00a0Dark Phoenix\u00a0<\/em>strays wildly from the famous 1980 comic book storyline but still honors its downer outcome. It\u2019s a bummer\u2026 intentionally and otherwise.<\/p>\n

The post Weekend Movie Review: \u2018Dark Phoenix\u2019<\/a> appeared first on Towleroad Gay News<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Weekend Movie Review: ‘Dark Phoenix’<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n