I don’t wanna feel Blue anymore...
Went to see Dark Phoenix. Honestly I didn’t get my hopes up but I thought “Well, it can’t be worst than Last Stand”. However, they proved me wrong.
I am very very disappointed. They delayed the movie for 1,5 years and it’s still such a mess? By now I an see that it isn’t just me, the movie bombed at the theatres and the critics thrashed it. I really loved the Apocalypse ans felt there was so much potential. What the hell happened? The only way for my soul to rest is to write a longass post to analyze.
The movie wasn’t just a bad part of an arc, it was a terrible ending to a whole franchise. Endgame wasn’t perfect but it did the best it could wrapping up the storylines, evoking emotions and making fans satisfied. Dark Phoenix did none of this, leaving most plotlines open and providing no emotional relief. Of course, Avengers had 22 movies to tell their story and 1 to 3 solo movies for the main characters, while X-men only had 3 movies for all since the retcon. But then The Last Stand had only two and it had more potential than this.
I’m not saying The Last Stand was good, it was a mess. But at least it did a number of things that felt right. For one, through just 2 movies all the X-men characters were very alive and emotional and their relationships solid. Jean was a mature woman, a familiar character who already made a huge statement by sacrificing herself to save the others at the end of X2. We also knew she was very close to both Cyclops and Wolverine and the final part where the latter killed her was actually very intense and emotional. Apparently, in the retconned narrative they removed Wolverine from the equation because it would look creepy. Which I think is pointless as even if Hugh Jackman looked 25, Wolverine was already about 90 when meeting Jean.
Thus, one of the biggest issues was that the current cast was fresh, most characters were only introduced in last movie and some were the enemies there so there was no space for much character of relationship development. Jean only just appeared in the picture, it was way too early to bring her to this ultimate ordeal.
It also brings me to First Class and how the whole narrative went astray because the First Class was not what it was supposed to be. I happen to know a thing or two about X-men comic books and that probably made it even harder to accept the very divergent movie version. Jean was the first X-man, not Mystique.
I did not mourn Raven. To me Mystique was the biggest problem of this whole new series. She had none of the personality and barely even used her power in the recent movies, being just a token and an old flame for Eric and Charles. Mystique is old and wise and very cunning. She is also pretty gay and of course mostly evil. I mean, she was one of the founders of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Rebecca Romijn was the only Mystique for me.
The whole Phoenix saga was a risky choice to begin with as in the comics, everything was revealed gradually over the span of 4 fucking years. But you’d think they would learn something from doing one unsuccessful movie.
This whole alien shape-shifting thing was terrible. It was way too complicated in the comics so I think they might as well just cut it from the story to make space for the character development and internal conflict within X-men.
Demonising Professor X doesn’t make any sense to me. He got vain? Sending the team on risky missions? And somehow responsible for Jean going crazy? All of that seemed like a desperate effort to create conflict while there was enough to go around already.
The story about Jean father also felt redundant. And Beast suddenly being crazy about Raven? What? Also, whatever happened to Moira? Not to mention Jubilee and other kids.
I realized the movie was not going where I wanted it to soon enough but I had that hope there would at least be a part with Peter doing awesome things. Instead, they injured him early in the movie and barely showed him for the rest of it. I then prayed for the very least a cheap sappy moment where he finally tells Eric he’s his son and shit but that never happened either. Not even going into Nightcrawler being Raven’s son.
One thing that made Marvel movies memorable was always humor present in almost every movie. That’s what made Endgame more human, you cried and then you laughed and cried again. Apocalypse had some too despite many tragic moments. But not Dark Phoenix. There was none.
But most of those things came to me later. I mostly just felt dissatisfaction. You know what really annoyed me more than it should during the movie ? How fucking perfect Jean’s make-up was all the time. Like, it wasn’t just good, she looked like a damn Maybelline model even after a cosmic battle. And her hair was from a shampoo commercial.
You know the movie was bad when you can’t even remember a thing you really liked about. There had to be something, right? Anything?
Well, there was Dazzler. For about a minute. I mean, that makes up for it, right? Oh, and I’m glad Charles and Eric finally hooked up. Even though Eric should be what? Over 60 by then. Just two old mutant queens in retirement.
Overall, the movie didn’t feel like an ending, good or bad. It felt like the narrative was just cut short, which it was. And to me X-man movies have been very much ups and downs with some terrible parts but also some really great ones. I felt like the new characters had much potential. Yet, with Dark Phoenix doing so bad it feels like this might really be the end.
