Simon Kinberg's 2019 attempt to finally do justice to the Dark Phoenix saga fails in almost every respect that The Last Stand failed and in several new ones. It is a film of near-total narrative paralysis, a perfunctory blockbuster that treats its characters as plot functions, its themes as obstacles, and its audience as an obligation to be discharged rather than an experience to be delivered.
At a Glance
Director: Simon Kinberg
Runtime: 113 minutes
Starring: Sophie Turner, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Jessica Chastain
Release: 2019
Critics Rating: ★ (1/5 stars, a franchise low point)
Audience Rating: ★½ (1.5/5 stars, a grim and dispiriting end to a franchise that deserved better)
Review Breakdown
Plot
During a space rescue mission, Jean Grey absorbs a cosmic force that amplifies her powers to an almost unlimited degree. As Jean struggles to control her new abilities, the X-Men fracture over how to respond, and a group of alien shapeshifters led by Vuk attempts to use Jean to recover the force for their own purposes. The plot is the franchise's most inert, a series of scenes in which characters explain their feelings to each other and then fight, without the engagement or the intelligence that would make either activity feel meaningful. The alien subplot is the film's most consequential structural failure, making the equivalent subplot in The Last Stand feel richly developed by comparison.
Characters
Sophie Turner's Jean Grey is the film's central character and its most notable casting challenge. Turner is a capable actress given impossible material, a character whose psychological disintegration is described rather than dramatised. James McAvoy's Xavier is the film's most dramatically interesting element, a man whose heroic self-image is challenged by the revelation that he suppressed Jean's memories, and McAvoy plays the character's defensiveness and eventual acknowledgement of his failures with a conviction the film around him does not deserve. Michael Fassbender's Magneto is reduced to a reactive supporting role with no use for the complexity and intelligence he brings to the character. Jennifer Lawrence's Mystique is dispatched with a brevity that makes her death read as a contractual obligation rather than a dramatic event. Jessica Chastain's Vuk is the franchise's least effective villain, a character of almost no personality whose motivations are too abstract to generate any menace.
Tone
Dark Phoenix mistakes grimness for seriousness and stasis for emotional weight. The franchise's best entries maintained a sense of engagement with their characters and their themes that made their more serious moments feel earned. Here there is no such engagement, and the result is a film that feels like a duty being discharged rather than a story being told. The absence of any lightness or wit makes the 113-minute runtime feel considerably longer than it is.
Meaning / Themes
The suggestion that Xavier's suppression of Jean's memories mirrors the broader society's treatment of mutants is the film's most coherent thematic concern, handled with enough care in McAvoy's scenes to suggest what a more focused version of the film might have achieved. But the alien subplot overwhelms these more interesting concerns in the second half, and the resolution is handled with a speed and a shallowness that makes it feel like a plot convenience.
Direction
Kinberg's direction is a work of technical competence and narrative vacancy that lacks the personal vision the franchise's best entries demonstrate. The pacing is the most persistent weakness, moving through the material with a flatness and a disengagement that drains every scene of urgency.
Cultural Reception
X-Men: Dark Phoenix received poor reviews on its release and was a significant commercial failure, performing well below expectations and becoming the lowest-grossing X-Men film in over a decade. Critics condemned the narrative inertia, the wasted cast, and the mishandling of the Phoenix saga, and the film's failure effectively ended the Fox X-Men series. It is now regarded as one of the most deflating conclusions to a major franchise in the genre's history, and the Dark Phoenix saga's second failed adaptation is widely cited as one of the genre's most significant missed opportunities.
Final Verdict: The weakest film in the Fox X-Men series and a dispiriting conclusion to a franchise that produced work of real distinction. James McAvoy is the film's one genuine asset, but Sophie Turner is stranded by impossible material, the alien subplot is dramatically inert, Jessica Chastain's villain is the franchise's least effective, and the film's relentless grimness makes its 113 minutes feel like a considerable endurance. The Dark Phoenix saga deserved better. It deserved better twice.