Sunday, June 9, 2019

Movie Review: Dark Phoenix

Michael's Movie Grade: F

Review: The X-Men movies could not have ended on a weaker note. Nearly everything that makes a bad superhero movie is present here.

If you had not seen or read anything X-Men related before you can be completely excused for believing that these characters have no personalities whatsoever. Jean Grey is the main character of this movie and you can tell by the fact that she has the closest thing to a personality here. The problem is that her story arc could have actually been interesting. A character who is afraid of her own power and how she can constantly hurt her friends is an interesting idea. Unfortunately that is all this is, a story arc and not a character. One would like to see more of what pushed her to this point, instead of have it come about in some of the most cliché scenes you have ever seen. The rest of the characters are as bland as can possibly be. Their personalities seem to be controlled by the plot's clichés instead of existing on their own. These characters seem to only exist for the plot and every line of dialogue from them is some of the most cliché superhero movie dialogue you ever heard. Worse than this are the villains of the film, who's motivation is completely cliché and unclear at the same time.

The story itself as mentioned before is just a smorgasbord of superhero movie clichés we have seen done much better elsewhere. This film feels like it is simply going through the motions instead of trying to tell a good story. Problem is there is a good story underneath all this but it could not have been told worse.

Trying to take such a big story arc as the Dark Phoenix saga was in the comics and make it into a less than two hour movie is never a good idea and this film shows why. What we get here is a very simplified version of the story which tries to use easy movie clichés to fit the story in the short run time.

-Michael J. Ruhland    

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