Dark Phoenix early reviews: A rushed sendoff

According to The Guardian, Jean is the high point of the film, which otherwise fizzles out. Its review read, “There is a surprise in store for Jean, though due to the superhero-style weightlessness of the film’s events, this surprise doesn’t pack the psychological punch that it should. Fundamentally, we are heading for the same good-versus-evil showdown that closes out Marvel movies, with lots of digital effects. The battle here is certainly spirited, and Jessica Chastain looks intimidating as the alien Vuk – although the role is a waste of her talents. Magneto’s reappearance is sub-par, and so, frankly, is Michael Fassbender’s performance, although his character has been starved of the kind of interest devoted to his old rival Xavier. We are also denied a bullet-time setpiece sequence for Quicksilver (Evan Peters), which were witty features of previous instalments. The point of a phoenix, dark or otherwise, is that it rises from the flames. But these are the flames in which this franchise has finally gone down.”

The New York Post called it “messy”. It wrote, “Turner might be a one-trick pony — I don’t see her signing onto “The Hangover: Part V” anytime soon — but it’s a winning trick. She’s intensely vulnerable here, and you feel for her quest to fill the childhood void the death of her parents left.”

As per the Hollywood Reporter review, the desire for completion will draw the series faithful, but there are loopholes too. “After 12 installments spread out over two decades, the X-Men franchise stumbles toward its close in Dark Phoenix. Played at an unmodulated level of subdued excitement that never quickens the pulse, longtime series producer Simon Kinberg’s directorial debut lacks the exclamation point fans have justifiably been hoping for at the end of a road that has embraced three prequels, related side routes with the Wolverine and Deadpool offspring and the reshoot-happy The New Mutants, now scheduled for release next April. Curiosity and the desire for completion will draw the series faithful, but the creative inspiration and public excitement that once fed the series has demonstrably dissipated,” its review read.

According to Entertainment Weekly, “It’s true that X-Men have never exactly been the party clowns of the Marvel Universe; their hero status has always been conditional to fearful humans, and the chosen family of mutants they’ve landed in is less choice than necessity. Why should they have to banter for us, too? Still, for what is being called a final installment, it all tends to feel both anticlimactic and a little grim in the end. Not that anything Marvel is ever really over; fans only have to hold their breath for horror spin-off The New Mutants, due next April.”

The Associated Press called Dark Phoenix “rushed”. It wrote, “It’s supposed to be the culmination of 20 years of X-Men movies, and yet it feels more like a rushed and inconsequential spin-off than something that we’ve been building toward for two decades. Perhaps that’s because we’ve barely gotten to know this version of Jean Grey (Sophie Turner), whose transformation into the all-powerful Phoenix is the thing that divides the X-Men into a tiny civil war.”