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X-Men: Dark Phoenix

Gaith

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Yep, forgot about it always being called X-Men: Dark Phoenix in other countries. (And Enterprise added Star Trek to its title at the beginning of the third season, at least here in the States.)
 

bionicbob

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Picked up the Blu Ray today....   there is about 8 minutes of deleted/alternate scenes, but nothing earth shattering or plot altering.  I guess it was too much to hope for, but there were no scenes from the original third act.... maybe one day?
 

Gaith

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Finally got the chance to swipe away $2.17 on a Redbox rental, which is about what this flick deserves. I thought it was... fine. Some decent performances, some decent action, and a fairly brisk pace. Compared to the bloated Apocalypse, I appreciated its brevity, though its story obviously demanded a longer runtime. Overall, my reaction was "meh." Of all the X-films, I only outright dislike The Last Stand; this, The Wolverine, Logan, Deadpool and Apocalypse I find varying shades of dull, and Origins: Wolverine is at least entertaining in its incompetence. And while there were lots of pretty swirly light effects, I found the most impressive visual to be Ms. Grey's tight shirt:

fenix2-670x277.jpg


 
bionicbob said:
--there is an event that occurs that suddenly turns America against mutants again, except it is so poorly staged/edited/directed that the US gov't reaction seems like overkill....

Agreed. Someone says Jean "destroyed two communities," which apparently references her busting up a few cop cars and helicopter, with no fatalities that I can recall. Certainly doesn't seem especially heinous for the crew that just rescued a shuttle full of astronauts.

 
bionicbob said:
--wow, Nightcrawler really went to the dark side... not sure how I feel about that scene? [...]  I mean what the hell happened to Nightcrawler?  Where did that come from????

I couldn't figure out what you meant by this, until I realized surely you must be talking about Beast's determination to kill Jean? Yeah, even counting Raven's hint that they should run off together, that seemed extreme. In any case, I agree with whoever on TV Tropes wrote this:
 
TV Tropes said:
Informed Wrongness: Charles Xavier is portrayed as being in the wrong for hiding an Awful Truth from Jean Grey, yet it's clearly shown that her father didn't want anything to do with her after she accidentally got her mother killed, and he just wanted to protect her from being hurt even more. The movie also calls him out for trying to use the X-Men as a means to generate good PR for the entire Mutant species, but considering that they were being vivisected by the government merely 19 years prior, trying to make heroes out of his students is a logical course of action in a world where many of them are still hated and feared. Hank and Raven also quite bizarrely act like this is the only reason for Jean going bad, somehow forgetting about the evil alien force intensifying her emotions.

Yes, when she reached an appropriate age, Charles should have told Jean her father was still alive. But, given that he wanted nothing to do with her, telling her both her parents had died as a child was probably the more merciful course of action, and under his watch, she became a heroic, happy young woman, so all the talk about how disgracefully he'd acted was weird.

Also weird: pretty much everything Jennifer Lawrence. But that's neither here nor there...

 
bionicbob said:
So what is better, DARK PHOENIX or LAST STAND?  Dark Phoenix is Jean-centric as it should be, and attempts to be more character oriented, but it fails to fully engage.  While Last Stand is a slick, more polished and exciting movie.  Tough call but I would probably go with Last Stand.

Oh, hell no, The Last Stand is an eternal crime against geekdom. In its comparatively small scale, and scene of Magneto busting up a train at night, Dark Phoenix gave me moments of nostalgia for the original X-Men film. (The last scene with the chess pieces, OTOH, fell utterly flat.) Given that they went into the reshoots knowing this would almost certainly be the end, it's kind of a shame they didn't burn the series to the ground by killing off just about everyone! :p

Welp, New Mutants notwithstanding, guess that's a wrap on X-Men for a few years, particularly given the lack of announcements for the MCU's Phase Four, even for Deadpool (whose sequel, remember, is the highest-grossing X-film to date). I'm still a bit sad to see the 19-year franchise end, but, c'est la vie, I guess.

Dark Phoenix: B-
 

wilhelm scream

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One thing I don't understand about Dark Phoenix is it's terrible continuity with the other movies. Not only does ignore the fact that Jean already had the Phoenix force in Apocalypse, but it also tries to make it look like she's dead at the end, even though she's alive in the epilogue of Days of Future Past.
 

addiesin

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wilhelm scream said:
One thing I don't understand about Dark Phoenix is it's terrible continuity with the other movies. Not only does ignore the fact that Jean already had the Phoenix force in Apocalypse, but it also tries to make it look like she's dead at the end, even though she's alive in the epilogue of Days of Future Past.

Or the whole thing where she gets the Phoenix in the film after using the Phoenix in the climax of the previous film (ten years earlier). That was the whole ending of Apocalypse basically. I just don't get it.

Granted, I still haven't seen this film. As someone who literally owns all the other ones I just don't have any desire for this one. I'll buy it used for cheap in a few years I'm sure.
 

bionicbob

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Gaith said:
 
bionicbob said:
 
bionicbob said:
--wow, Nightcrawler really went to the dark side... not sure how I feel about that scene? [...]  I mean what the hell happened to Nightcrawler?  Where did that come from????

I couldn't figure out what you meant by this, until I realized surely you must be talking about Beast's determination to kill Jean? Yeah, even counting Raven's hint that they should run off together, that seemed extreme. 
Dark Phoenix: B-

Actually I was referencing the train sequence, where Nightcrawler goes psycho and starts murdering soldiers.

Yes, continuity is a disaster in this movie, especially after the Phoenix set-up in Apocalypse.  As I said before, it feels like the producers just shrugged their shoulders and gave up, and use the excuse that it is "10 years later, so lots can happen in 10 years".  :mad:

I agree with @"Gaith" B-Minus rating.   It is better than Apocalypse, more character oriented but it is still a messy affair.  Based on everything I read, they should have trusted their instincts and stayed with the original cut, as it sounds like a much more interesting movie.
 

Gaith

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bionicbob said:
Actually I was referencing the train sequence, where Nightcrawler goes psycho and starts murdering soldiers.

You sure those weren't the aliens in human form? I only watched the sequence one, but don't remember him killing soldiers. Could be wrong, though.

 
bionicbob said:
It is better than Apocalypse

I guess? I feel that Apocalypse has a better flow, and builds to a more dramatic conclusion, though I certainly don't want to sit through its 2.5 hours again anytime soon. And its Cairo action climax was pretty awesome, with the mental battle and all. I'd give 'em both B-minuses, I guess. But my list of keeper X-films is definitely X1, X2, First Class, DoFP, and Deadpool 2.
 

Masirimso17

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I think Apocalypse was better. At least Apocalypse was about something and tried to give an important message about our society. It’s just that the characters were extremely weak and the plot was extremely uninteresting.

Dark Phoenix on the other hand was a complete disaster with little redeeming qualities. Any kind of message the film was trying to give was either completely jumbled and mishandled or worse pretty dangerous. B- is way too generous IMO. At least it can be used for Last Stand fanedits— a movie that has the potential to be salvaged with flashback structure. And is also entertaining despite its flaws.
 

Gaith

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MovieBob is annoyingly harsh toward the X-films, but he did nail the core problem with Dark Phoenix three years ago - namely, that by stripping out any subtext or hint of "bad girl" sexuality (no matter how problematic), there's really no point to doing this story. I definitely noticed while watching the movie that Jean's only moment of enjoying any kind of dark side was acting very mildly buzzed and asking for a third or fourth alcoholic drink. Scary! She's out of control! Hell, she didn't even jump Cyke's bones, even though it looked as though she was going to for a moment!



Meanwhile, the Honest Trailer crew record may be their funniest commentary yet, dunking repeatedly on the logic, continuity, basic storytelling, and general human emotion flubs all over the flick. It didn't even occur to me that Storm just let everyone get rained on! "Now the whole mansion will smell like wet Beast!" :p

 
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