Dark Phoenix (2019)-New Trailer!

The Solo comparison is an interesting one, as I didn't think that movie was that bad when I finally got to see it.

I think the Russo Bros. did very well directing the MCU movies they did: Winter Soldier, Civil War, Infinity War and Endgame. They did make you feel for the characters, and they maintained a good tone. And most importantly, got great takes out the actors (Kinberg is an amateur with getting takes out of actors as a director and it shows in Dark Phoenix).

I'm no MCU fanboy (though I have seen all the films, and grew up reading Marvel, but DC also), but their stuff is successful for a reason, and they do well with adapting the source material and getting the characters correct as well. I didn't see much fidelity to the characters here. McAvoy's Professor X is now a glory hound, who sends the team on risky space missions and drinks openly in the school? That was garbage.

If anything, Marvel/Disney will have a hard time giving us something new we haven't seen onscreen yet with the X-Men. But many think Fox never adapted them properly since the beginning (I'm in the middle, thinking they've had a handful of classics, a few middling ones, and a few outright duds).

 

An explanation of the Vuk and their role in the film. Interesting comparison of the Phoenix force to the cloud Galactus from the Fantastic Four film - essentially the Phoenix force and Galactus are mindless forces of nature. I think the one major mistake the film made was almost totally skipping Jean Grey's corruption with such absolute power and rather than annihilating an entire race of people it is limited to just one person, much like X-Men 3 did with Cyclops.

https://io9.gizmodo.com/a-brief-explanation-of-dark-phoenixs-confusing-alien-vi-1835146917

It makes my wonder why they did a decent job with the origin sequence on the space shuttle - not totally in line with the comics, but a really good sequence, then they toss out the middle third of the Phoenix arc and bring in the Vuk, a race we've never seen before in the film series.

I think it would have made more sense for the Vuk being totally left out and having Jean attack and destroy Magento's colony and the final third of the film being the mutants uniting against Phoenix.

 

A few more thoughts I had on these big-budget superhero movies: most of the movie studios (like Fox, Sony and Warner Bros / DC) seem to act like having the IP is enough, and they can get a few recognizable actors and have a guaranteed hit. They don't put enough effort into the story first, or it comes out like a muddled mess (like the Andrew Garfield Spider-Man movies under Sony) with too many cooks.

A great story I heard about Kevin Feige over at Marvel was (and I'm not sure how apocryphal this is) that he was sitting in on a meeting for a comic movie some years back and the execs were trying to figure out how to adapt it. Feige holds up a comic and says "Why don't we just do this? They've already done the work for us". I get that vibe from most of the really good Marvel movies, that they are primarily concerned with the story they are telling first, and how they are telling it. More often than not it is in the spirit of the comics themselves. When they made changes for purposes of the movie, like in Captain America: Civil War, it arguably improved on the source material in ways.

 

Yeah, the MCU films just do little to nothing for me emotionally, and I don't feel that way about many, many other films (superhero or otherwise). They just leave me cold. I just don't care, and I even went back before "Endgame" and rewatched most of the films (both ones I hadn't seen, and then rewatching others most integral to the story). I didn't hate any of them. They're very clean movies. The villains are (as often cited) the main problem often. But the slate of MCU film has less mess than any other superhero series I can think of that goes past three films.

As for Professor X in "Dark Phoenix", I think the characters in the film keep accusing him of being a glory hound. A definite flaw with the film is that they kind of treat Professor X like crap and the script doesn't offer him much of a chance to defend himself. I'm not opposed to a flawed, conflicted character. So his drinking isn't a problem, though it isn't really addressed in the film. Similarly, while the film only has characters *accusing* him of ego issues, I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to a script that showed that maybe he *did* have a bit of motivation out of ego/glory. But I also think the film doesn't do well by having characters several times imply he has truly nefarious, evil motives in what he's doing. I don't think anything indicates that. A difference of opinion about how to conduct their operation and how intertwined with the government they should be (similar to the clash signing the accords in the later MCU films) is something worth exploring, which in some films they have at least touched on. But in "Dark Phoenix", it isn't given much attention. And again, that's definitely a flaw with the film.

I also think something that Disney may discover and fans who are frothing at the mouth for Disney to take on the X-Men may also discover is that, maybe, and I stress just *maybe*, the X-Men are a bit more difficult to adapt to the screen than many if not most of the MCU characters/stories. It's been said many times, they succeeded in part by taking seemingly second-tier Marvel characters (in some cases anyway) and doing well with them based on little expectations (initially of course) from fans/viewers.

I've *never* heard much of anyone outside of hardcore comic reader circles ever say about, say, an Iron Man movie "Iron Man actually did this different in the comic books when he...." On the other hand, I hear people complain about Batman and X-Men movies contradicting comic lore *all the time.* That can't *all* be because the MCU never deviates at all from the comics. It's because more people probably read or have read Batman or X-Men than Iron Man or Black Panther or Guardians of the Galaxy.

Many fans and critics, right at this moment anyway, are pre-set to give MCU films the benefit of the doubt and not go very hard on them. I don’t say this out of sour grapes, and I don’t meant to sound patronizing. Not everybody falls into this category. But some do, and for that reason I assume an eventual MCU “X-Men” product will be well received by the masses, unless somehow in the next few years MCU films start to lose a lot of steam and popularity.

MCU films are also fascinating because in 2019 they are held in quite high esteem overall, but if you go check reviews from 2012 and the years around that time frame, while people seemed to really like the MCU, there were *a lot* of complaints. People said “First Avenger” was boring. Some said Iron Man was a Bruce Wayne ripoff. People did and still do seem to not like Iron Man 2 or 3 so much. A lot of people don’t like the first and/or second Thor film. It’s weird. It’s another franchise where people just relentlessly praise it, yet seem to have big issues with like half of them.

 

Feige (and others; I'm sure it was not a one-person operation that made that all happen) put some true elbow into their work in the early era.

More recently, I always refer to Feige as the Phil Jackson of studio figureheads/producers. Meaning, much like Phil Jackson earned his success and then from that point on largely sought out intact, ready-to-go successful or near-successful teams and was hired to maintain the high quality level and get them just over that last hump to ultimate success, Feige's talent at this point is maintaining the quality rather more than anything else. And that's truly a big job, no question. But he's part of Disney. He's not having to traverse a lot of opposition within his company. His franchise has more clout than anything out there. He has all the money and industry power to make things happen. Again, I'm sure there's pressure for when or if something finally does tank. But it's a very different job and talent set and level of focus on "art" compared to a scrappy director or producer trying to build something from scratch, to say nothing of overcoming a lot of bad PR. In other words, good luck Matt Reeves.

 

Well there may be something to the fact that Avengers or Black Panther or the Guardians were relatively new on the big screen the last 10 years, and didn't have years of cinematic baggage behind them (or a series of film flops) like other characters they've repeatedly rebooted. I will say one area where the MCU stumbles for me is the portrayal of Spider-Man, after the deal with Sony. 2017's Homecoming was enjoyable, and it's full of Spidey doing Spidey-like things, but this characterization of Peter Parker as somehow slavishly a devotee of Tony Stark is tedious and wrong headed. I realize that's how it ended up because of when the MCU got to play with the character (arguably Marvel's flagship character), but it's one thing I find grating as a Spider-Man fan. He shouldn't be in any other hero's shadow.

That's why it's so remarkable what Chris Nolan achieved with the Bat-franchise. It had all but been capsized by the two very bad mid to late 90's movies. The character got a long rest on the big screen, and there were several would-be auteurs who gave their pitches for some wild-sounding Bat reboots. But they gave it to Nolan, who was very much an unknown entity at the time. He made something transcendent out of it. Now Reeves is possibly in the same boat, but with a few more big studio tentpole flicks on his resume. One wonders if he has the vision to pull it off (Nolan did).

 

I feel Sophie Turner just doesn't cut it as Jean Grey or Phoenix, for which I blame casting not trying to find someone who was right for the part, not Turner herself. Famke Janssen came closer but she still couldn't elevate the under-cooked turkey that was Last Stand.

 

Was their any extra scenes after the end credits? I didn’t stick around as the folk around me were leaving in droves, when credits came up.. I just assumed.

 

Don't you guys look at review ratings before you decide to see a film? This was universally panned and continued in the long X-men tradition of making two good films in a row followed by a total clunker.

 

Many, including myself, often, but not always, disagree with the critical consensus. There are a number of users in this thread who enjoyed the film despite the harsh reviews.

 

I saw it at the cinema and enjoyed it, and bought the BD. I think there are some great bits in the film but it ultimately suffers for me because of the acting and writing of Apocalypse. He just didn't come across very well, he was acted poorly and written poorly. I just didn't buy that he would wake up and take over the world in a couple of days. He should have been built up like Sauron in LOTR, as this looming horrific threat, rather than a guy in blue make-up wandering about with some kids. And the final battle just seemed unbelievable. Within that there were some great scenes, like his psychic battle with Charles, that would have worked in a better structured film.

But I do enjoy it for what it is and it's not as bad as people make out.

 

I watch a lot of Stuckmann as well. It's funny as we seem to be opposites on this one - he found the first two acts dull and liked the third act, while I found the first two acts good and didn't like the third act.

I do have a slight issue with Stuckmann though in that how can I trust someone who thinks Signs is a masterpiece

 

No, why should I care what someone else thinks?

 

No, there are no extra scenes.

 

I scanned a handful of reviews, mostly focusing on the opening paragraphs. That was enough to get me to expect a stinker, which the movie wasn't.

My own personal order:

1) Deadpool
2) Logan
3) X-Men: First Class
4) Deadpool 2
5) X2
6) Dark Phoenix
7) X-Men
8) Days of Future Past
9) The Last Stand
10) The Wolverine
11) Apocalypse
12) Wolverine Origins

???) The New Mutants

 

Well, it's usually a pretty good indication of how good a movie is, and since you can blow plenty of money and time at the cinema these days it's good to be highly selective about what's worth watching in the theater.

Plus, isn't that ultimately why we're here--caring what someone else thinks?

 

I generally do not find reviews to be an accurate predictor of what I like. I prefer to experience things on my own, and without the clouded filter of knowing someone else's opinion. At least in regards to artistic merit.

 

I can appreciate that, but a glance on the "tomatometer" is usually a pretty good indicator of how enjoyable a movie is, without reading anything that could significantly influence your experience or knowing someone else's opinion per se.

 

Completely disagree. many of my favorite movies are rated as "rotten."

 

Wouldn't it make more sense to view trailers (far from a perfect indicator, but a generally helpful tool to get a feel for a movie) rather than read what *other* people think of a film before you've seen it?

But who knows, I mean, the internet is *always* right about movies......

 

You do know how Rotten Tomatoes scores are calculated, right? Someone reads each review, and decides whether the review is more positive than negative or vice versa, and then gives it essentially a "0" or a "10."

So a movie where every review gives a film the equivalent of a 51/100 score will be "100% on Rotten Tomatoes", while a film that gets half 10/10 scores and half 4/10 scores will be "50% on Rotten Tomatoes" and be deemed "rotten."

Like any aggregator, RT is not like 100% completely off the mark compared to how people feel. But it's really not a good tool for "should I see this movie?" type situations.

It's really good only for answering the question of "how many reviewers felt this movie was more good than bad?"

And even then, it's questionable because someone at RT has to take reviews without any "star" or "number" rating and just *decide* whether the review reads or sounds more good than bad.

The aforementioned Chris Stuckmann on YouTube pointed out recently that RT *misinterpreted* his review of "Glass", deeming it "negative" when he felt it was more positive than negative. This happened because he didn't give a star/number/letter grade. He just talked about the movie.

Rotten Tomatoes is trying to make positive changes, but they're really doing more about trying to block masses of trolls trying to skew a film's rating in one big swoop. They're not really addressing how invalid their underlying model is.

 

He is a self-professed Shyamalan fanboy. I think he mentioned once that Shyamalan one time responded to one of his tweets years ago, and that's all it took for Stuckmann to go from liking the guy's movies to, in my opinion, trying to wring effusive praise for most of the guy's work in situations that maybe don't warrant it.

You can tell with his "Glass" reviews that he's trying *so hard* to make himself like it, but it seems like he can tell it's a mixed bag at best. If you look, Stuckmann had to review the thing *twice.* The first time, he refused to give it a letter rating because, I guess, he was still trying to sort out how he felt. This was clearly a concession to Shyamalan that he would never have offered to another film/filmmaker. I think his impulse was to give the film a mediocre rating, but he wanted to try to watch it again to justify giving it a higher mark.

Ironically, this led to what I mentioned in another post: Because he's a RT reviewer, they took his first non-graded review and deemed it "negative", which seemed to annoy him.

 

Days succeeds where Apocalypse fails I'd say because of Logan. Almost the entire cast in Apocalypse are glum, moody, earnest, sullen, lofty. Pretty dull stuff. There's no pragmatist in the group without Wolverine. No character with dirty fingernails having a beer.

 

I was very happy there wasn't a Wolverine or Stan Lee cameo in this one.

 

Yeah, I get that any one review characterization could be off, but I'm more interested in the rule than the exception. The aggregated scores are generally pretty accurate in my experience. Ironically, I was reading snippets of reviews about this movie and realized that one of the few reviews that was rated positive was actually quite negative.

There are enough reviews where several can be mischaracterized one way or the other, but the overall score will come out accurate relative to the merits of the film...plus there is an audience excitement meter. I find that it's a way to gauge the hype about a movie separately from its actual merits. For example, Secret Life of Pets 2 scored poorly but is in the mid-'90s in audience appreciation. Everyone is excited for it, but it's not as good as the first one. I'll happily skip it.