There are not many films that genuinely made me want to walk out of the cinema, Dark Phoenix was one of them though. Despite the talented cast of previously successful films, the mediocre writing and dull failed to maintain its continuity with previous films. I don’t really recall anything I liked about the film with the exception of a pretty decent train fight. It was a wasted film that destroyed a franchise that had already been given a second chance.
But this is nothing that hasn’t already been said before and many times. Today I just wanted to rant about one specific failure, that proved to be my final straw in my opinion of this film, It took the franchise’s biggest strength and made it their most painfully cringe inducing weakness.
So what is this mystery ingredient that made me swoon for an X Men film?
Well as juvenile as it may be, it was their use of their single allotted “F Word” in each PG-13 movie they produced as part of the most organic reboot in cinema history. Every scene involving the infamous F word, they just nailed! This did not go unnoticed by me, often rewatching those scenes out of context because of their sheer entertainment value!
I am as convinced today as I was in 2011 that Wolverine telling Xavier and Magneto to “Go Fuck Themselves” is the greatest moment cinema will ever have to offer us.
So first a look back at all the great swearing Fox had to offer us…
Everybody’s favourite moment in X Men: First Class, arguably the best film in the franchise until Logan came out. (Logan isn’t included in this list because its rating allowed for lots of swearing).
Up next is Days of Future past where Charles attempted to get his own back for Logan’s rudeness, of course it doesn’t quite go as he may have planned, because nobody says no to Wolverine….Or Hugh Jackman for that matter! Days of Future past is where the prequel met the reboot, except unlike most reboots, this was canon. With a time travel plot that kept an amazing prequel and two great films in Canon while rewriting lesser enjoyed moments of the franchise’s history.
Next was the more divisive Apocalypse. 2016 was a year of superhero films that mostly everyone disliked and I thoroughly enjoyed (Batman V Superman, Apocalypse, etc). Despite seeing many valid criticisms after the initial cinema euphoria had worn off. I still thought it was a great movie and there use of the F Word was superb. Breaking the tension of Magneto’s heartbreaking monologue in the most hilarious way possible.
Despite the poorer critical response to Apocalypse, I was incredibly excited to see another X Men film that followed the young mutant heroes and continued to build on the story arcs being setup, especially those of Magneto and his son Quicksilver, who had all the best scenes in the previous films.
When Dark Phoenix was released it was universally panned. But I wasn’t deterred, critics hadn’t been nice about apocalypse either and I loved that, but the truth is that somehow the same studio that released 10 franchise films that were at absolute worst “Okay” (The Last Stand) and at absolute best a masterpiece (First Class, Logan, Deadpool) created a dud of a film.
I still can’t get my head around how a studio screwed up so badly, they had the same great cast, several arcs setup from previous films and thousands of potential story sources in the comic books. As well as a legion of fans who could have probably done a better job with a half decent iphone camera and some drama students.
All it would have taken is a generic villain, a fast running scene from Quicksilver and a few mutant hijinks and I would have walked out the cinema thinking it was the best film ever made. But they couldn’t even get that right. They fast forwarded several years for no reason, they made all the characters boring and one dimensional (except Charles who they just made a douche) they took Jean Grey’s most interesting story and made it boring and predictable and they couldn’t even remember that Jean Grey is alive at the end of Days of Future Past, so killed her off? What the hell!
I can only recall two occassions in which I have wanted to leave a film early, this was one of them. But I didn’t because I thought “If they get the swearing right, everything will be okay”.
But I guess you should judge for yourself…
It sucks! It’s just Cyclopse trying to be hard. “Look out! We got a badass here”.
I just wanted one thing from this movie…just one! And that’s it, that’s the real insult of this film and why I don’t like it, I think someone screwed over a lot of good cast and crew in this production.
But I’ll give Harri the last word…
T H E N A I V E F I L M M A K E R 