There are a lot of exciting superhero movies on the way in 2019, like Avengers: Endgame and The New Mutants and Shazam! and Spider-Man: Far From Home. But there’s another one coming that isn’t getting as much press or hype as those movies, perhaps for good reason, and that’s the latest X-Men movie, Dark Phoenix. The trailers for the movie have had a mixed reception from fans and critics, while the disappointment of Apocalypse doesn’t have people’s hopes very high. Still, it can’t be all bad.

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Not looking forward to: Watching the same movie we’ve seen before

Dark Phoenix X-Men Last Stand Similarities

Across X2: X-Men United and X-Men: The Last Stand, we already saw an adaptation of “The Dark Phoenix Saga,” the comic book storyline that Dark Phoenix is based on. The only reason it’s getting remade is that Days of Future Past’s confusing timeline changes erased that from ever having happened.

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So, now that there’s a slightly different Jean Grey to whom none of that stuff ever happened, history is going to repeat itself. Essentially, it’s a remake of a movie that only came out a few years ago and wasn’t very good anyway. It could be seen as a do-over, but either way, there’s no getting around the fact that it’s a film we’ve seen before.

Looking forward to: A more faithful adaptation of “The Dark Phoenix Saga”

While “The Dark Phoenix Saga” has been adapted for the screen before, it was only a loose adaptation taking some aspects of the story – and the movie turned out to be pretty sucky. Director Simon Kinberg has promised his film will be a more faithful adaptation of Chris Claremont and John Byrne’s comic book, taking the story to the screen in a more straightforward way than The Last Stand. “The Dark Phoenix Saga” has long been considered by fans to be one of the greatest X-Men storylines ever written, so if the movie more or less uses it as a storyboard (as Zack Snyder did with 300 and Watchmen), it’ll at least have some merit.

Not looking forward to: More of the young cast

X-Men Dark Phoenix Trailer Space Crew

X-Men: First Class, which replaced the cast we’d come to know and love – Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, Hugh Jackman etc. – with a bunch of newbies, made $353 million worldwide. Days of Future Past, which brought back Stewart, McKellen et al alongside the newbies, made $747 million. Apocalypse, which again ditched the old cast and just kept the newbies around, made $543 million. How have the producers not taken the hint yet that hardly anyone cares about the young cast? Or at least that they care way more about the older cast? It’s not that James McAvoy and Sophie Turner and Jennifer Lawrence and Michael Fassbender aren’t great actors – it’s just that they’re not the X-Men we know and love.

Looking forward to: Jessica Chastain’s female villain

X-Men Dark Phoenix Trailer Jessica Chastain in New York

Ever since it was revealed that Disney rejected Shane Black’s proposal to have a female villain in Iron Man 3, more and more studios have been taking chances with female villains like Hela and Cheetah. Dark Phoenix is also entering that realm, casting Jessica Chastain as the shapeshifting alien who manipulates Jean Grey and masterminds the whole thing. The fact that it’s Chastain is the icing on the cake, as she’s one of the finest actors to emerge in the past few years and she never fails to deliver a great performance, even if it’s in a big studio movie.

Not looking forward to: The twists we already saw in the trailers

Mystique trying to talk Jean Grey down in X-Men: Dark Phoenix

The trailers for Dark Phoenix have spoiled a couple of major twists, including the fact that Jean Grey kills Mystique. Simon Kinberg explained that the spoiler was a decision made to establish that this is “unlike other X-Men movies.”

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He added, “Intense, dramatic things happen. People don’t just fall off buildings and dust themselves off and walk away. There’s a reality to this movie and a consequence to this movie. Even more than that, it was to show that Jean/Dark Phoenix is genuinely a threat to everyone, including the X-Men.” Still, we’ll be sitting through the whole thing, knowing that certain twists are coming, which is no fun for anyone.

Looking forward to: The cosmic sequences

X-Men Dark Phoenix Trailer Space Mission

When Bryan Singer first became interested in adapting “The Dark Phoenix Saga” for the screen in the second X-Men film, screenwriter Zak Penn convinced him not to include the scenes set in space. He thought it was too early in the series to take the characters to space. However, Simon Kinberg feels it’s about time, so he’ll be bringing everyone’s favorite mutants into the cosmos in his version of the storyline. However the movie itself turns out, if the trailers are anything to go by, it seems pretty obvious that the film’s cosmic sequences will be visually exciting and spectacular.

Not looking forward to: Ham-fisted sociopolitical commentary

X-Men Dark Phoenix Trailer Michael Fassbender as Magneto

The X-Men stories have always been known for their sociopolitical commentary, with the mutants treated as a marginalized minority group within Marvel’s fictional universe. But obviously, sociopolitical commentary isn’t always a good thing. It can be brilliantly done, combining the thrill of superhero action with the weight of real-world issues. However, if the balance isn’t right and it turns out too on-the-nose or its message feels muddled, it can be horrible. Magneto’s island for mutant refugees, Genosha, is confirmed to appear in Dark Phoenix, and director Simon Kinberg has already compared it to Israel outright, which signals some ham-fisted sociopolitical commentary in the movie.

Looking forward to: Sly meta jokes

X-Men Dark Phoenix MCU Guards

A lot of fans spotted a jab at the MCU in the Dark Phoenix trailer. When a bureaucratic agency guards a prison train containing a few key mutant characters, their shoulder patches reveal they work for the “MCU.” There is no pre-existing organization in the comics called the MCU, so this is an entirely new creation for the film (SR’s Matt Morrison has suggested it could stand for Mutant Containment Unit). It seems like a self-aware joke about Disney’s acquisition of Fox. If there are more meta jokes like it peppered throughout the rest of Dark Phoenix, then that’s something to look forward to.

Not looking forward to: Dull action sequences

X-Men Dark Phoenix Trailer Quicksilver Attacks Jean Grey

You can pump as much money as you want into an action sequence, but if it isn’t directed with style or personality or enthusiasm, then it’ll end up being a big, empty spectacle. The visuals will be there, but it’ll come off as flat if the same attention isn’t given to the camera movements and the editing and the framing. Sequences can be beautifully constructed with the latest, sharpest CGI technology in the world, but that will all be worthless if they don’t have those little character moments. Based on the trailers, Dark Phoenix is shaping up to have pretty dull action sequences.

Looking forward to: Escapism

X-Men Dark Phoenix Trailer Storm

At the end of the day, the reason why most of us go to see superhero movies is the element of escapism. For two hours or so, we get to escape the humdrum real world and see a bunch of heroic superpowered individuals in a heightened reality fight bad guys and save the day. Dark Phoenix probably won’t turn out to be as masterfully craft a work of cinema or as emotionally resonant an experience as Avengers: Endgame, but it will, at the very least succeed at being a big-budget superhero movie thrusting a few of our favorite characters from the pages of comic books into a high-stakes situation with spectacle and panache. If you ask only that of it, you’ll probably enjoy it.

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