DARK PHOENIX: PHOENIX FALLS IN ASHES

 

In a world where super hero movies reign it would seem strange to find one series of films that continually drop viewers rather than find them on the increase. And yet that’s exactly what has happened with the X-Men franchise. The first film kicked off the beginning of the new super hero craze but with each subsequent film they got worse rather than better. In part that was due to their steering away from source material but the major reason is the movies, well, just got worse.

Now we have the last in the line of X-Men films to come from 20^th Century Fox, the company that has owned the rights to the series but was recently bought out by Disney who happens to own the Marvel brand. Talk is already in the works that a new series based on the characters is forthcoming. After DARK PHOENIX we can only hope so.

Opening in 1975 with the tragic accident that landed Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) in the Xavier School for Gifted Children, the story moves to 1992 and just nine years after the last X-Men film involving Apocalypse. The X-Men are now seen as heroes and the President calls on them to save space astronauts trapped in a shuttle as a solar flare heads towards Earth. They save the day but during the rescue Jean is caught in the solar flare and it has devastating effects on her.

The flare increased her psychic abilities and removed a block Prof. Xavier (James McAvoy) placed in her mind preventing her from learning how her parents died. She learns that her father survived and abandoned her to Xavier and goes to visit him where he now lives. Dealing with a form of post-traumatic stress disorder she finds herself in a rage when the X-Men show up to take her home resulting in a battle that leaves one of the key members dead.

Leaving her ex-teammates behind she travels to Genosha seeking the help of Magneto (Michael Fassbender) to control this unstoppable rage. He denies her the assistance and when the US military shows up she unleashes her power on them, Magneto and his people. When Magneto learns who Jean has killed he sets out to eliminate her in New York City.

While this is transpiring Jean runs into Vuk (Jessica Chastain), an alien who has possessed the body of a human here on Earth. The leader of an alien race known as the D'Bari, she explains to Jean a cosmic power wiped out her planet and was traveling the stars when it came across Jean, the solar flare that took place at the beginning of the movie. She offers to take the power cosmic from Jean. But what she doesn’t reveal is that in doing so Jean will die and then she will use the power to conquer Earth. Only the X-Men stand in her way.

The movie fails on numerous levels, none of them technical or effects related. Those are, as always, well done. It fails in the story. First off we’ve already had the story of Jean Grey and the Phoenix in the 2006 film X-MEN: THE LAST STAND. So now we as viewers are supposed to toss aside all of the movies from the original films and assume none of it happened. This on top of the fact that the source material, the actual comics the series is based on, had a completely different storyline as well. Why call it this if you don’t intend to use most of the original story? Unless it was just to get fans in the seats no matter how disappointed they would be.

The film was in turmoil long before it was released to theaters. Problems with the shooting, the failure of the film in the series released before this one and the lack of enthusiasm from the studio made it a one off feature that was just there to finish a contract. It shows. There is no depth of character or story here that would draw in those who loved the original film or even the efforts behind X-MEN: FIRST CLASS which was decent as well.

As I said Disney/Marvel have been talking about rebooting this and the Fantastic Four films that Fox owned the rights to as well and also made a ton of mistakes on. One can only hope that the end result with those from Marvel on board will result in something better than this. As a person who likes to collect entire runs of series on film I will find it difficult to add this to my collection, even if I find it in the used store. If you want to see it to make sure you’ve seen them all go for it but die-hard fans will not want to bother.

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