Movie Review – Dark Phoenix

Thabiso Moloi — Thu, 06 Jun 2019 13:02:12 +0000

The late Stan Lee is by far one of the greatest and well known pioneers in the comic book industry. It’s no wonder the news of his recent passing had a huge impact on many, us included. In addition to his masterpieces, the X-Men franchise is no doubt one of his best creations. Since its inception way back in 1963, the franchise has gone from strength to strength with a whole raft of successful comic books as well as movies released over the years.

It’s 2019 and we have another exciting version forming part of the overall X-Men franchise called Dark Phoenix, officially in cinemas nationwide this Friday. Consisting of a blockbuster cast anyone would be proud to boast in one setting, Dark Phoenix is a movie many have a keen eye on. In light of all the above it was always going to be interesting to see what the initial reactions were going to be, we’ve had a look and it’s not good, in fact according to various critics Dark Phoenix just might be one of the worst in the entire franchise. Disheartening yes but was that ever going to deter us? Definitely not as we like to make up our own minds. So, is it really that bad?

Cast – James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Sophie Turner, Tye Sheridan, Alexandra Shipp & Jessica Chastain

Directors – Simon Kinberg

Genre – Sci-fi/Action

Running Time – 1h 54m

In DARK PHOENIX, the X-MEN face their most formidable and powerful foe: one of their own, Jean Grey. During a rescue mission in space, Jean is nearly killed when she is hit by a mysterious cosmic force. Once she returns home, this force not only makes her infinitely more powerful, but far more unstable. Wrestling with this entity inside her, Jean unleashes her powers in ways she can neither comprehend nor contain. With Jean spiraling out of control, and hurting the ones she loves most, she begins to unravel the very fabric that holds the X-Men together. Now, with this family falling apart, they must find a way to unite — not only to save Jean’s soul, but to save our very planet from aliens who wish to weaponize this force and rule the galaxy.

So the great news is Dark Phoenix is not the worst X-Men movie nor is it the worst movie to watch generally. Having said that though it’s also not that great or mind blowing, it simply does a job. When you look at the overall franchise, Dark Phoenix definitely doesn’t compare with the likes of Logan and Days of Future Past, two legendary movies that are not only the best in the overall franchise but also superb movies generally.

From an entertainment point of view, this movie provides it’s fair share of that with some great sequences and fights rendered, this is something we found ourselves enjoying quite a bit. Where it falls short is all the other stuff in between, from the plot (which we found a bit lacking) to the villains (something that is crucial in a movie like this). On the latter, there’s just not enough time spent on the character origins/development which tends to defeat the purpose. The ending was also a bit simplistic and left most things up in the air.

Dark Phoenix is by no means a bad movie, we have seen way worse before and this isn’t even close. With a running time of just under two hours (which is way short for a movie like this) we feel more time could have been spent on further finessing an initial intriguing story line. If it was a general standalone movie then it probably would have received a good enough review but because it’s an X-Men movie (which is an iconic and legendary franchise) it just has too much legacy and history to compete with. Not the worst but also not that great, still worth a watch though. It gets a 6.5 out of 10 rating from us.

Thank you to the brilliant folk at MNet Movies (in association with Ster Kinekor) for the cool screening.

Stan Lee – TWFLD

Movie Review – Dark Phoenix