Dark Phoenix

The X-Men are back where they started, and Dark Phoenix is a great film mainly because, like Singer's first two films, it cares so much about the characters. Once again, dialogue and emotion play a primary role, and the action scenes serve mainly as a spectacular journey leading to the very thing that once set the mutant saga apart from other comic book movies and made it a grown-up spectacle with room for reflection. If the Dark Phoenix script had been written and filmed in 2006 instead of Last Stand, it would have been an amazing conclusion to the trilogy. As it is, it's an amazing conclusion to a somewhat disjointed and confused saga that, while it has somewhat lost itself over time, has always managed to find itself again. In terms of the acting, I have nothing to fault, of course from the story I'd like to acknowledge the errant Professor X, as well as Jean herself, and director Simon Kinberg pleased me as much as the screenwriter – now I'm not just talking about the divine train finale, but especially the pervasive tension and justifiable sense of doom that he manages to evoke (thanks in part to Zimmer's music). (2019-06-11)

After watching the film, I was surprised at how badly this final episode of modern X-Men is rated. It didn’t seem so bad to me, but I have some comments on the film. The thing that intrigued me the most was the fact that the film was entrusted to an inexperienced director. This mostly shows in the action sequences. I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s the most furious action I’ve ever seen. The strange thing, however, is that this weird action looks incredibly epic in the end. I really don’t know how to put in the words, but I guess these are the best furious action scenes I’ve ever seen. The camera is not shaky, it performs such maneuvers that it boggles your mind, and even though I was quite dubious the entire time, it turned out that it’s the best feature of the whole flick. Together with Hans Zimmer’s music, which is once again epic and memorable. The plot, however, is worse, as it’s often the case with X-Men movies. Sophie Turner makes the same puppy eyes as she did in Game of Thrones, but this time it doesn’t work. During the entire movie, which was supposed to be about her, I was incredibly annoyed by her character. The best parts were as usual James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender, thanks to whom I enjoyed the ending. This instalment deserves definitely better rating then 59 out of 100. It is controversial, true, but it is also entertaining, which is exactly what I wanted from it. (2020-01-14)

The X-Men's descent from the best comic book adaptation ever (Volume 2) to utter forgettable sh*t. And sad be the day Sophie Turner believed she was an actress. Well, perhaps she is an actress, but she’s certainly the least charismatic being to appear in the entire series. Fassbender, Lawrence and McAvoy must have been terribly relieved that they got off the hook with this latest installment and don't have to keep plugging away. (2019-09-03)

Due to the public's zero to negative expectations, a clear critical and commercial defeat was anticipated long in advance, breaking my heart with how much it reaches out to me and how well I understand it. It is, in fact, split exactly halfway between honoring all conceivable references and the existing film legacy. It emphasizes teamwork, without the naiveté of classic comic book adventures, and shamelessly points out that it more or less repeats X-Men: The Last Stand, with several plot twists that wink at the viewer – then goes in a different direction. Sophie Turner surprisingly masters the conflicted Jean and thus pays greater homage to the entire Phoenix saga (thanks in part to thirteen years of advancements in CGI) than Famke Janssen did in her time (iconic though she was). Moreover, when Magneto is fully immersed in the story, once again proving that Michael Fassbender is the best cast member, I forget about the slightly conflicting motivations of the individual characters and gladly submit my final rating to the complex message that symbolically resonates with the original ideas from the first films. Simon Kinberg understands mutants and loves them unconditionally, occasionally forgetting about viewers who haven't seen most of the previous films backwards and forwards. Nonetheless, the farewell to this separate form of the righteous X-Men manages to remain firmly grounded, even though its scale reaches to the stars. (2019-06-15)

It is the year 1992, the space shuttle Endeavour ends up in a cosmic cloud in our planet’s orbit, the X-Men come to help, and something goes wrong. This space plot introduces a non-mutant/non-human enemy, while at the same time dropping the storyline with GLBT/LGBT hatred that they were so fond of in this series for so many years. Some members of the team have stopped enjoying their blind subservience to mankind. The team is slowly falling apart and Jean becomes Phoenix again, but this time around we don’t have the sexy Famke Jannsen to play the part convincingly. The younger actors generally can’t compete with high-calibre performers like McAvoy or Fassbender, so the movie relies a little more on the latter's performances. Even so, Kinberg is a capable storyteller and serves up dynamic action scenes and good ideas. The climax on the train, where everybody goes ape-shit, is full of memorable scenes. All this accompanied by Hans’s outstanding music. In the end, this is quite a solid ending to the X-series. Those were good years. P.S: The end conflicts with what was hinted at in Days of Future Past. (2019-06-08)