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James McAvoy's Professor Charles Xavier has been a narcissistic, self-indulgent prick through too many movies. I frankly don't give a f*ck about him, resent that he gets top billing and screen time and mostly just want him to go away. Unfortunately for all concerned, he's central to the Dark Phoenix story, which this movie attempts to portray. That it doesn't utterly F everything up makes it better than I feared, but it's not the story I wanted and it's majorly flawed. 2/5 stars, and that's being generous.
The Dark Phoenix story is my favorite X Men story of all time. It's classic Chris Claremont writing and I have not seen much like it in major-title comics. Part of it is standard "fall of a hero" stuff and partly it's a story in which the writers faced up to the dictum that "major characters can't die" and dealt with consequences in a moral way. Things I've read indicated that the writers struggled with the impact of what they were writing and about how to manage/end things. It's well thought-out and meaningful. That it sticks with me nearly forty years later is a testament to the story's power.
To its credit, the movie tries to keep to these themes, but without the extended time and rich universe of the comics it ends up feeling forced. In the comics, Jean Gray's relationship with Scott Summers is much better developed and is a focal point of the story. In the movie you kind of know that they're together but it hasn't been explored. Crucially, this changes a set of actions where a female character makes volitional choices about her own fate because of her own feelings into a generic "women as mother-protectors story."
I think the actors do well with the roles as written. Fassbender's take on Magneto continues to evolve and to be one of the most interesting elements of this movie arc. I hope he sticks around in whatever comes next. The directing is competent if not exciting and the movie kind of moves along. Its core problem, though, is that there's nothing really to care about, nothing to hang your hat on, and the person occupying the screen too much of the time is someone I just want to smack. Hard, and not in a fun way.
In the comics, the Hellfire Club is well established and it plays a major role in the Dark Phoenix storyline. Here it's not even mentioned and Jessica Chastain, playing a character everyone watching knows is supposed to be Emma Frost, is just referred to by a made-up alien name. Like... what? Did they not have the rights to those characters or something? It feels like an homage attempt that just becomes another "yadda yadda" moment. Chastain does a good job with what she's given, but I feel like the entire thing is lacking.
Major spoilers below the cut. No, seriously, in a movie with effectively zero surprises or twists you don't want to know this beforehand.
( Specifics )
The Dark Phoenix story is my favorite X Men story of all time. It's classic Chris Claremont writing and I have not seen much like it in major-title comics. Part of it is standard "fall of a hero" stuff and partly it's a story in which the writers faced up to the dictum that "major characters can't die" and dealt with consequences in a moral way. Things I've read indicated that the writers struggled with the impact of what they were writing and about how to manage/end things. It's well thought-out and meaningful. That it sticks with me nearly forty years later is a testament to the story's power.
To its credit, the movie tries to keep to these themes, but without the extended time and rich universe of the comics it ends up feeling forced. In the comics, Jean Gray's relationship with Scott Summers is much better developed and is a focal point of the story. In the movie you kind of know that they're together but it hasn't been explored. Crucially, this changes a set of actions where a female character makes volitional choices about her own fate because of her own feelings into a generic "women as mother-protectors story."
I think the actors do well with the roles as written. Fassbender's take on Magneto continues to evolve and to be one of the most interesting elements of this movie arc. I hope he sticks around in whatever comes next. The directing is competent if not exciting and the movie kind of moves along. Its core problem, though, is that there's nothing really to care about, nothing to hang your hat on, and the person occupying the screen too much of the time is someone I just want to smack. Hard, and not in a fun way.
In the comics, the Hellfire Club is well established and it plays a major role in the Dark Phoenix storyline. Here it's not even mentioned and Jessica Chastain, playing a character everyone watching knows is supposed to be Emma Frost, is just referred to by a made-up alien name. Like... what? Did they not have the rights to those characters or something? It feels like an homage attempt that just becomes another "yadda yadda" moment. Chastain does a good job with what she's given, but I feel like the entire thing is lacking.
Major spoilers below the cut. No, seriously, in a movie with effectively zero surprises or twists you don't want to know this beforehand.
( Specifics )
