After an epic 19-year run that birthed the modern superhero movie craze and saw it through its most landmark changes, Fox's X-Men movies as we know them came to a rather unceremonious end in 2019 with Dark Phoenix.
The movie was a flop with critics and fans alike, with its disappointing box office take causing it to be remembered as the biggest flop of that year. But is it all bad and does it deserve the hate that it gets? Let's look at some of the areas in which the movie delivered something good as well as its more unavoidable faults.
Isn’t: Self-Awareness
As quickly as the end to almost two decades of–albeit very loose–franchise continuity seems to come and go in the movie, Dark Phoenix does take the time to reflect.
The movie fully acknowledges the changes that are on the horizon with the absorption of Fox's movie studios into Disney and the accompanying merging of the X-Men back into Marvel Studios. It might even be its most interesting, and fully-realized, theme.
Is: It Learns Nothing from Past Mistakes
With so much thought being put into Dark Phoenix's place within the franchise, you'd think that this would be the moment to truly make up for–or, at the very least, not repeat–its biggest mistakes.
Yet writer and director Simon Kinberg appears to have learned nothing from his underwhelming introduction to the franchise, X-Men: The Last Stand, which tackled essentially the same story in the same way.
Isn't: Menacing Villains
While they aren't particularly well developed (or developed at all, really) the villains of the movie are satisfyingly imposing and their lack of detail ultimately helps in making them seem more mysterious and menacing.
The shapeshifting aliens play their cards close to their chests and use deception to their advantage at all times but that also doesn't prevent Jessica Chastain from having a bit of typical bad guy fun as their ruthless leader.
Is: Similarity to Other Superhero Movies
Despite extensive reshoots attempting to dull the effect, amongst other things, Dark Phoenix is unable to effectively stand out from the oversaturated superhero movie crowd.
It's most noticeable in the areas where it bears a striking resemblance to the much better-received Marvel comics superhero movie released only three months prior, Captain Marvel.
Isn’t: Shifting the Narrative to Mental Health Concerns
The original metaphorical value of the X-Men in Fox's movie universe was a representation of LGBT people facing marginalization within their own societies and that vision of them lasted throughout most of the movies in the franchise.
Similar to the X-Men adjacent show Legion, however, Dark Phoenix views its mutants through the lens of mental health issues which is a relevant and positive step forwards for the franchise in a movie sense and will hopefully shine through in both The New Mutants and whatever the X-Men get up to under Marvel Studios.
Is: What It Does to Beloved Characters
The idea of Charles Xavier being viewed in a harsher light was one of the many things that carried over from The Last Stand but Dark Phoenix kicks the sudden change in his character into overdrive.
Even before the lackluster end to Jennifer Lawrence's tenure as Mystique, Charles is shown to be foolish and egotistical in a way that doesn't mesh with his character at all and Hank McCoy, though clearly grieving, betrays all of his character development pretty quickly for the sake of a last-minute narrative switch up.
Isn’t: The Action Sequences
Even though it was one of the later additions to the movie in reshoots, the climactic train fight sequence fully delivers on showcasing the superteam's powers.
The action, overall, may not be as frequent as fans would like but the movie's other sequences are quite varied and always unusual or entertaining to watch in some way.
Is: The Time Jump
The franchise's decision to set the sequel to First Class a decade into the future was a bold move that really paid off. The actors' ages weren't an issue and the stark change in styles between the early 60s and the early 70s really gave the movie a distinct personality and a seized-upon opportunity to demonstrate attention to detail.
When the next sequel used the same trick and moved things forward to the early 80s, it was certainly less impactful but the cast just about gets away with it thanks to some new additions and all-around high suspension of disbelief. Dark Phoenix moving the same actors forward another decade to the early 90s was just a bridge too far though. Aside from the actors all looking exactly the same as they did in what was meant to be a different decade, there's very little about the movie that has anything to do with the 1990s and the once-clever twist comes off as a pointless gimmick.
Isn’t: Michael Fassbender’s Performance
There are a number of great actors within Dark Phoenix that had quite clearly mentally checked out of the franchise altogether even before the movie was wrapped but Michael Fassbender wasn't one of them.
This may partially be down to the fact that he's one of the few main players who doesn't have the foundation of their character butchered in the movie, but Magneto is as compelling and emotional in the final X-Men movie as he was in the first.
Is: Unsatisfying Conclusions
After nearly two decades spent with these characters, their future is left uncertain and their goals unfulfilled.
Within the movie itself, the audience never learns anything more than it already knows regarding the fate of mutants within their world or the newly-introduced cosmic powers at play beyond it. There's an interesting potential left hanging between Magneto and Professor X but it's never been implied that audiences will get to see it.