Post by Vits on Oct 1, 2019 17:57:30 GMT
X-MEN: DARK PHOENIX takes the audience on an overlong journey without any memorable action sequences and finishes with a rushed ending. While Sophie Turner's performance is consistently weak, most of the other main actors have moments where they act well and moments where they act badly. This inconsistency is a sign of bad directing. Yeah, I think we should blame Simon Kinberg, especially considering that: a) he's a writer/producer without any previous experience sitting on this chair; and b) these thespians have showcased true talent in other projects. In the comics, the way in which super-hero JEAN GREY was slowly consumed by her new powers was treated as the B-plot throughout several issues while there were other antagonists. I didn't know that when I started reading the collected edition that's named THE DARK PHOENIX SAGA. The A-plots weren't bad or anything but, due to this kind-of false advertising, they came off as filler. When JEAN completed her transformation into PHOENIX, it was very good. The storytelling was compelling and the vocabulary used in the narration was very interesting (for a super-hero comic in 1980). However, the personal drama wrapped in a sci-fi/fantasy package was turned into a convoluted story about aliens and their laws. The last part was just a repeat of the previous issue, only with a different ending. This movie and X-MEN PART 3: THE LAST STAND have general script issues, but I can't say they're bad adaptations. Their script writers knew that it was best not to adapt the majority of the saga. What makes this installment stand out from the rest of the franchise is that the heroes are now public figures. And that's not something briefly touched upon; it's incorporated into the plot. Now that humans know everything about mutants, there are no more scenes about "They react negatively towards us out of fear/ignorance/intolerance," which were getting old. There's even a great scene where an army man approaches anti-villain MAGNETO and I was expecting him to act like an asshole (as authority figures usually do in this franchise). Instead, they have a brief yet thoughtful conversation. They're clearly trying their best to solve the problem in a civilized way.
4/10
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Another great scene involves JEAN visiting the father she thought was dead. Any other movie (of any genre) would've played this situation out as him being heartless, selfish, an addict, etc... Instead, it's implied that he abandoned his daughter because she was indirectly responsible for her mother's death. You can see where he's coming from. Remember back in the 1st installment when MAGNETO made fun of how humans used guns (something he saw as primitive and inferior)? Here, he uses his powers to lift a bunch of guns and fire them. Hypocrite much? That movie ended with him and PROFESSOR CHARLES XAVIER (the founder of the team) playing chess. Obvious symbolism aside, it was yet another reminder that they had a very friendly rivalry, since the scene took place in MAGNETO's (plastic) jail cell and since they talked about their different ideologies. This movie ends with them playing chess in a café in Paris smiling. What the Hell?!
4/10
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You can read comments of other movies in my blog.