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X-Men: Dark Phoenix is not too bad… not too bad at all.
I did fear that all the best bits from the movie were in the trailer, but there’s plenty more in store to be quite enjoyable here. Some good battle scenes and emotional disagreements going on that don’t feel too contrived and fit the story quite well.
Dark Phoenix, being the latest and last of the Fox franchise (thank God!) is certainly better than the ridiculous Apocalypse, the confusing ‘let’s wipe the slate clean’ Day of Our Lives and Ghosts Of Christmas Past time-travelling screw the timeline up foolishness and of course the hugely disappointing X-Men 3: The Last Stand, which this is pretty much a reboot of.
For starters we don’t have the frowning Wolverine trying to cop off with Cyclops’ bird in every other scene and being the only one who can stop her because he’s indestructible.
He isn’t, by the way.
“Oh, the painful dilemma of having to kill the woman I love that I stole from my mate”. So sad, so angsty. Is it Wolverine, or Woe-verine? Blimey O’Reilly, give me strength.
Still, he seems to have sodded off back to Cold Lake, Alberta, so all good.
It’s all a bit weird the X-Men being like the Avengers and Fantastic Four going off on space missions at the request of the United States President, but at least they’re not still hated by everyone. They’re heroes! Superheroes! So that’s a pleasant change for the constantly vilified mutants, innit?
But of course, once Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) starts offing people after getting hit by a mysterious force on said space mission and the X-Men start to fight amongst themselves, it surely can’t be long before people are running screaming for their lives from the freaks again.
Quite a bit of blue skin going on in the current team as well, it seems. A little too much Ribena at Charles‘ School for Gifted Youngsters, perhaps?
Jessica Chastain makes for another reasonably good baddie too. At least I think it’s Jessica Chastain. Could be Bryce Dallas Howard. They’re pretty interchangeable, even with blonde rather than ginger hair. Sorry, strawberry blonde hair.
Anyway, now that Disney have bought Fox and with it, the rights to use the X-Men in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, hopefully we’ll see the mutants portrayed as they should be in a timeline that makes sense, and a Wolverine as he should be. A short, hairy, bar-brawling runt of a man, not the 6’2 Hollywood Wolverine.
Strange little cameo from a dazzling character that I used to quite like as a kid though. Nice to see her, but a little bit out of place and unnecessary.
If you don’t have too much on and it won’t cost you too much of your hard-earned, you might as well check out the last effort from Fox.
X-Men: Dark Phoenix is available to pre-order on Blu-ray, Amazon Video, 4K Blu-ray and DVD.
Also available is the X-Men: Dark Phoenix Saga paperback.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 113 minutes
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Year: 2019
Format: 2.39:1 (Anamorphic Panavision)
Released: June 5th 2019
Rating: 6/10
Director: Simon Kinberg
Producers: Todd Hallowell, Simon Kinberg, Hutch Parker, Lauren Shuler Donner
Screenplay: Simon Kinberg (based on a story by John Byrne, Chris Claremont, Dave Cockrum)
Music: Hans Zimmer
Cast:
Professor Charles Xavier: James McAvoy
Erik Lehnsherr / Magneto: Michael Fassbender
Raven / Mystique: Jennifer Lawrence
Hank McCoy / Beast: Nicholas Hoult
Jean Grey: Sophie Turner
Vuk: Jessica Chastain
John Grey: Scott Shepherd
Jones: Ato Essandoh
President of the United States: Brian d’Arcy James
Dazzler: Halston Sage
Match: Lamar Johnson
Young Jean Grey (8yrs Old): Summer Fontana
Elaine Grey: Hannah Anderson